What happened
The Trump administration yesterday said it was opening investigations into alleged unfair trading practices by 16 major U.S. trading partners, including China and the European Union, as President Donald Trump tries to resurrect sweeping global tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court. The investigations, based on Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, will look at "excess capacity" in manufacturing, said U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer (pictured above with Trump). Other targets of the investigation include Mexico, Japan, South Korea and India. 

Who said what
The new investigations give the administration “an avenue to rebuild a credible tariff threat against trading partners to keep them negotiating and implement trade deals” after Trump’s earlier tariffs were thrown out, Reuters said. “The policy remains the same,” Greer told reporters. “The tools may change depending upon the vagaries of courts.”

Section 301 investigations “typically take several months or even years, but Greer said his team would aim to complete the probes by mid-July,” when Trump’s temporary 10% tariffs — under Section 122 of the 1974 law — expire, The Wall Street Journal said. Greer “didn’t specify how high the new tariffs would be, saying he would not prejudge the investigations.” The Section 301 tariffs are “meant to address specific and legitimate unfair trade practices,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said. “They should not be used to drag the United States back into a cost-raising, broad-based tariff regime.”

What next?
Greer said his office expects to open a second Section 301 investigation today targeting forced labor involving about 60 nations. The Trump administration “is required to carry out an investigation and hold consultations and hearings before it can impose those import taxes,” The New York Times said. But the inquiries “will almost certainly result later this summer in permanent new taxes on U.S. imports,” The Washington Post says.

What happened
Britain’s House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber of Parliament, will no longer include hereditary peers under a bill that gained final approval Tuesday night. Under the law, the remaining earls, viscounts and dukes who inherited their seats in the chamber along with their aristocratic titles will leave Parliament for good when the current session concludes this spring.

Who said what
The law was a priority for Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labour Party, and its passage finalizes reforms begun 25 years ago under the Labour government of Tony Blair. For most of the chamber’s 700-year-history, only “noblemen — almost never women” — and a “smattering of bishops” served in the House of Lords, until they were joined by politically appointed “life peers” in the 1950s, The Associated Press said. In 1999, Blair “evicted most of the 750 hereditary peers, though 92 were allowed to remain temporarily to avoid an aristocrats’ rebellion.”

The ​House of Lords “can amend but not block legislation” from the House of Commons, Reuters said, and under a deal to secure assent, “around 15 Conservative hereditary peers” will be allowed to keep their seats as newly minted life peers. “The Lords plays a vital role” in Parliament, “but nobody should sit in the House by virtue of an inherited title,” said Angela Smith, leader of the upper chamber.

What next?
The bill “will become law once King Charles III grants royal assent — a formality,” the AP said. Starmer’s government said the legislation was the “first step in wider reform to the House of Lords,” the “only legislative body that still contains a hereditary element” other than “Lesotho’s Senate.” With more than 800 members, the House of Lords is also larger than any legislative body except China’s National People’s Congress. “Further changes” will involve “members’ retirement and participation requirements,” Smith said.