Appendix J: The tariff and the investment offer
The proposed tariff, investment timing and available legal routes.
Supports the Smart Tariff.
A tariff is worth having when it causes something to get built here, and worth nothing when it only raises the price of what people buy. Project 2029 therefore pairs a tariff with an investment offer. The tariff is announced during the campaign, written into law, and scheduled to take effect in 2031. During 2029 and 2030, the government helps finance the domestic production that will serve the protected market.
The name is the Smart Tariff. Its purpose is to change where companies build and what the United States can produce. A manufacturer should be able to look at the American market, the future tariff, and an available financing route, then decide to put its next plant here. The public gets productive capacity and jobs. Where the government lends, repayments return to the public. The financing is designed as investment rather than an unrestricted gift to an incumbent company.
The proposal is for stiff tariffs in 2031, announced early enough that manufacturers can begin building before they take effect. The plan does not specify a final rate schedule; that belongs in the legislation.
The time between announcement and implementation matters as much as the tariff rate. An immediate tariff lands on goods people already buy, before a new factory can replace them. A dated tariff gives manufacturers time to respond and gives the federal team something concrete to organize around. It does not make every factory quick to build, and it does not excuse the government from doing the financing and construction work.
The offer to domestic and foreign manufacturers
The invitation goes to American firms and, by name, to Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and German manufacturers. If they want to serve the American market after the tariff takes effect, the plan offers a reason to manufacture inside it. The administration should seek those investments during 2029 and 2030 rather than wait until the tariff begins to affect customers.
Cheap federal capital is part of that offer, where the program's terms and underwriting permit it. The team will help a manufacturer find the eligible loan, guarantee, or other financing instrument and get an application through it. Private capital is welcome alongside. Where a public program can lawfully finance the project and funds are available, public financing need not await private investors.
This offer uses the programs in Appendix A within the conditions in Appendix B. A company's willingness to build in America does not override a program's sector, ownership, national-security, or project requirements. The White House team's job is to make eligible investments happen and identify the remaining financing gaps. A general-purpose public investment bank requires the RFC charter the plan ultimately seeks from Congress.
A successful investment policy brings back useful output, not only loan repayments. It creates domestic suppliers, work for the people who install and operate equipment, and capacity the next round of investment can build on. That is why Appendix C follows an industry through its materials, machinery, facilities, and customers. The tariff strengthens the demand side of that work. It cannot perform the rest of it.
Keep trading while the new capacity is built
The trade war with China is one the United States is losing by ceding industrial capacity and future jobs. This administration ends it. Imported goods supply needs that domestic industry does not yet meet and help households buy more with their wages. Cutting off that supply before replacing it would turn a program of renewal into a rise in the cost of living.
A growth story that produces inflation can lose the first midterm, and losing that election can end the full Mission for America. The strategy is therefore to remain commercially open while building domestic capacity behind a tariff whose date firms can plan around. The administration seeks the investment and output first, with the tariff announced early enough to influence those decisions.
This is also an argument for inviting manufacturers from the countries whose firms already know how to produce the goods the United States needs. The location of productive capacity matters. The purpose is to bring more of it here, and to use the years before 2031 to make that possible.
Why the promise needs Congress
A company deciding whether to spend four years and $2 billion on a plant in Ohio needs confidence that the market conditions behind its investment will survive construction. An executive announcement resting on a disputed delegation of tariff power offers less assurance than a tariff Congress has explicitly enacted. The 2026 litigation made the difference visible.
On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court held 6–3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In Learning Resources v. Trump and the consolidated V.O.S. Selections case, the Court rejected the claim that IEEPA's power to regulate importation supplied the asserted tariff authority. Taxing imports is a congressional power; the president must have a valid delegation to exercise it. Supreme Court opinion.
IEEPA duty collection ended on February 24, four days after the decision. The resulting refund exposure was enormous. In July 2026, Customs and Border Protection estimated the duties assessed over the relevant period at approximately $166 billion, with more than 53 million entry summaries requiring processing for accurate refunds and interest. The point for an investor is the instability of a price promise built on an authority the courts find inadequate. CBP's July 8, 2026 Federal Register notice.
The administration responded on the day of the ruling with a 10 percent global import surcharge under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. That statute allows a balance-of-payments surcharge of up to 15 percent, for no more than 150 days without congressional extension. The proclamation specified a July 24, 2026 endpoint. A power written for a temporary payments problem cannot itself supply the durable promise on which a four-year factory investment depends. February 20, 2026 surcharge proclamation.
On May 7, 2026, the Court of International Trade found the challenged Section 122 tariffs unlawful, with relief limited to the importer plaintiffs rather than a universal injunction. The surcharge's own July expiration was a separate limit. The administration's ability to move from one trade statute to another did not eliminate those statutes' particular conditions or the risk of another challenge. Court of International Trade, Slip Opinion 26-47.
A statute passed by Congress is not immune from legal challenge or future amendment. Its advantage is that Congress supplies the tariff authority directly and states the policy investors are being asked to build against. The campaign announcement starts the conversation. Enactment turns the proposed tariff into law. The plan retains 2031 as the effective date without pretending that the date alone settles when Congress will pass it.
The narrower executive powers that remain
The IEEPA decision did not abolish the president's other trade powers. They remain available for their statutory purposes. Each has a different trigger and process, which is why a general industrial promise should not be assembled out of whichever emergency argument happens to survive that month.
Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 permits action on imports that threaten to impair national security, following a Commerce Department investigation and the required presidential determinations. It is a sectoral instrument. By 2026, the administration's actions had reached steel, aluminum, copper, cars and car parts, timber and lumber, furniture, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and heavy trucks. The announced schedules included rates running from 10 to 100 percent, with different effective dates, product coverage, agreements, and exceptions. That range is a description of the measures in this period, not a universal rate schedule for those industries. CRS's inventory of the 2025 tariff actions, January 2026 semiconductor proclamation, April 2026 pharmaceutical proclamation.
Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 authorizes responses to specified foreign acts, policies, or practices following the Trade Representative's process. It is the authority behind the established China trade actions and can support country-specific tariffs. Its explicit tariff powers and extensive use make it an established instrument, but a new action still needs its own statutory basis. In July 2026, USTR used Section 301 following investigations concerning forced-labor import prohibitions in 60 economies, illustrating that the authority's use had expanded beyond the earlier China measures. 19 U.S.C. §2411, USTR's July 2026 notice.
Section 201 safeguards provide another route when increased imports are a substantial cause of serious injury, or its threat, to domestic producers. The International Trade Commission investigates and makes the relevant findings; the president decides whether to provide relief. This is a specific process for an injured industry. USITC's explanation of Section 201.
Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 permits additional duties of up to 50 percent in response to qualifying discrimination against American commerce, with a 30-day interval after proclamation. It was enacted 96 years before the current tariff disputes. It can no longer be described as unused: on July 20, 2026, Trump invoked it in three proclamations imposing additional 50 percent tariffs on specified Canadian goods. Its use still depends on the findings and conditions in that statute. 19 U.S.C. §1338, White House's July 20 announcement.
These powers can matter to the administration's trade policy. Their availability does not supply the complete legislative tariff proposed here. The policy judgment remains that Congress should write the 2031 tariff rather than leave manufacturers guessing which delegation will carry it.
Reconciliation and the factory calendar
A tariff raises revenue, which gives it a direct budgetary basis for reconciliation. Project 2029 proposes to use that route while the Senate retains the filibuster. A qualifying reconciliation measure can pass by a simple majority: 51 senators, or 50 plus the vice president, rather than the 60 ordinarily needed to overcome a filibuster. The bill still needs reconciliation instructions, committee action, and provisions that satisfy the Byrd rule. Raising revenue does not make every accompanying industrial-policy provision eligible. 2 U.S.C. §644.
The investment calendar must be equally explicit. A four-year plant begun in 2029 opens around 2033, after the tariff begins. Starting it in 2032 would delay production still further. Existing plants, additional lines, and shorter projects can expand supply before 2031; longer projects make the early announcement and credible enactment more important because their investors are committing for a longer period.
The years before the tariff are therefore years of work: finding investors, arranging eligible finance, ordering equipment, expanding suppliers, and starting construction. The president must earn the votes and give manufacturers a reason to commit before those years are gone. The test is what the policy gets built, what starts producing, and what becomes possible for the next stage of the Mission for America.