After discussions with automakers including firms in Japan, the Trump administration may not need to place tariffs later this month on automobiles imported from the European Union and elsewhere, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has said.
"We've had very good conversations with our European friends, with our Japanese friends, with our Korean friends, and those are the major auto producing sectors," Ross told Bloomberg Television in an interview published Sunday.
"Our hope is that the negotiations we've been having with individual companies about their capital investment plans will bear enough fruit that it may not be necessary to put the 232 fully into effect, may not even be necessary to put it partly in effect," Ross said, referring to the investigation under Section 232 of a 1962 trade law.