Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America CEO Matt Priest said shoe importers expect to pay $5 billion in tariffs this year, up from $3 billion last year, given the additional 30% tariffs on Chinese shoes, 20% on Vietnamese shoes, and 19% on Indonesian shoes. Last month, shoe importers owed $635 million in tariffs, up 108% from the month before.

Former U.S. trade representative Michael Froman said the standards set by the World Trade Organization have been under stress for 15 years, and that its principles of global non-discrimination, bound tariff levels and restrictions on what can count as a bilateral or regional trade deal are dead for good.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the leading Republican for a secondary tariffs bill supported by 85 senators, said that he talked to President Donald Trump on Sept. 11 about "moving forward" with secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas. He said he was encouraging him to look upon the Russia sanctions bill as something that would help him, "basically, giving him the authority to do what he's doing, which would help him in court."

The EU wasn't willing to gamble on a trade war, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her annual "State of the EU" speech.

White House trade official Peter Navarro will need to be sidelined for a trade deal between the U.S. and India to emerge, according to Mark Linscott, a former assistant U.S. trade representative for South and Central Asia. Navarro's comments about India have inflamed the conflict, Linscott said, and have made trade negotiations more difficult.

The EU Parliament is debating a proposal to lower its own tariffs, operating as though the U.S. is upholding its end of the U.S.-EU agreement, despite apparent U.S. failure to enact promised tariff reductions on EU goods. On Sept 1, the EU Parliament held an extraordinary meeting of the Committee on International Trade to discuss the legislation and the deal as a whole.

Less than a week after European politicians said that the trade framework was establishing certainty for European businesses, President Donald Trump lobbed a bomb on social media, threatening "substantial additional tariffs" and export restrictions on chips.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the plan to impose higher tariffs on India over its Russian oil purchases, but not on China, arguing that India's purchase patterns shifted sharply after the invasion of Ukraine.

Less than two weeks ago, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to impose an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods because that country is importing Russian oil, and Russia's actions in Ukraine are "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States." He said that if Russia were to "take significant steps to address the national emergency described in section 1 of this order and align sufficiently with the United States on national security, foreign policy, and economic matters, I may further modify this order."

Thompson Hine trade lawyer Dan Ujczo, who has expertise in North American trade and, particularly, automotive trade in the USMCA region, said the way the carve-outs to 25% Section 232 tariffs have been shaking out has surprised him -- and, he believes, has surprised countries that are automaking powerhouses.