October 1, 2025—Top Stories:
White House Orders Government Shutdown
White House budget director Russell Vought on Tuesday evening directed federal agencies to begin implementing their shutdown plans after Senate Democrats blocked a Republican plan to keep the government open beyond midnight.
The leaders of executive branch departments and agencies “should now execute their plans for an orderly shutdown,” Vought wrote in a memo, formally initiating the first closure of the federal government since President Donald Trump’s first term.
The directive sets in motion furloughs for hundreds of thousands of federal workers and the suspension of a wide range of government services. Federal agencies have published plans over the past several days detailing which roles and services are deemed essential enough to continue during the shutdown despite the lapse in funding. Vought has separately asked agencies to prepare plans to permanently reduce the federal workforce through mass firings during a shutdown.
How Trump is Protecting his Trade Priorities from a Government Shutdown
As Washington enters a government shutdown, the Trump administration has erected safeguards to ensure President Donald Trump’s most hardline priorities continue unscathed.
Agencies central to Trump’s agenda are shielding certain programs by declaring the federal employees who work on them essential or sheltering them under already approved funding streams — designations that will allow them to keep running through the funding lapse.
All core immigration enforcement operations — from Border Patrol to Immigration and Customs Enforcement — will continue without interruption. The Department of Homeland Security’s 2025 shutdown plan calls for a higher percentage of its total employees to be retained during a shutdown than its 2023 plan — 95 percent now compared to 88 percent two years ago. DHS in its 2025 plan also expanded the number of employees it can retain by law during a shutdown by roughly 2,300.
Both the Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office make clear in their shutdown plans that they will continue advancing the president’s trade agenda, a departure from previous years when trade was largely deemed a non-essential function that could be put on the backburner during a shutdown.
Commerce, for instance, is allowing import licensing for steel and aluminum products, investigations around sector-based tariffs and export control activities to continue without exception, none of which were explicitly protected activities in its 2023 shutdown plan.
USTR, meanwhile, plans to continue administering tariff programs established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, according to a draft plan posted and removed from its website in recent days. While those tariffs are being challenged in court, the Trump administration has declared trade deficits with other countries a threat to national security, a rationale USTR is also using in its decision to continue trade talks.
USTR is also retaining 60 percent of its workforce during a shutdown, compared to just 40 percent in its 2024 plan. Last year, the agency said that only four full-time employees were required to carry out necessary duties during a shutdown compared to 118 employees that received such a designation this year, nearly half of USTR’s staff.
Section 232 Tariffs Take Effect Oct. 14 on Timber, Lumber, Upholstered Furniture and Cabinets and Vanities
Section 232 tariffs on timber, lumber and their derivatives will take effect Oct. 14, under a proclamation issued by President Donald Trump. Tariffs will be set at 10% for timber and lumber, 25% for upholstered furniture and 25% on wooden cabinets and vanities.
On Jan. 1, the tariffs on upholstered furniture will increase to 30%, and on wooden cabinets and vanities to 50%, “except for countries with which the United States reaches an agreement that addresses the threatened impairment of the national security posed by imports of wood products.”
Tariff subheadings subject to the new tariffs are outlined in an annex to the proclamation.
Trump Administration Widens Export Control Blacklist to Hit Subsidiaries
The Commerce Department on Monday unveiled a rule that will automatically add subsidiaries of listed companies to a U.S. trade blacklist, in a move aimed at preventing firms in China and other countries from bypassing Washington’s export controls.
The interim final rule broadens the so-called entity list to cover subsidiaries that are at least 50 percent owned by listed companies, significantly expanding the number of firms on the blacklist, according to a Federal Register notice set to publish Tuesday, the same day the rule takes effect.
Pharma Tariffs Exclude Most Major Drug Companies
As details emerge ahead of the Trump Administration’s policy on Pharma tariffs, most drugmakers seem poised to sidestep the tariff’s harshest impacts.
For instance, the 100 percent duty won’t apply to companies building plants in the U.S., including those “breaking ground” or already under construction, Trump wrote in the first of a series of Truth Social posts last week outlining new sector-based tariffs. The triple-digit pharma duties also won’t hit generic drug imports, which account for most prescriptions filled in the U.S.
In addition, both the European Union and Japan face lower 15 percent tariff rates on pharma products, consistent with the terms of the updated frameworks they signed with Washington earlier this year. Countries that haven’t specified new rates for pharmaceuticals, such as the United Kingdom, face 100 percent tariffs.
The partial reprieve comes amid intense pressure from lawmakers, including 20 Ways and Means Republicans who sent the administration a letter asking them to avoid broad pharmaceutical tariffs, citing the risk of shortages and price hikes.
The White House has not released new details about the national security investigation into pharma imports since it launched in April under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
Trump Sets Additional 10 Percent Tariff on Canadian Softwood Lumber
President Donald Trump has set an additional 10 percent tariff on billions of dollars of softwood lumber imports from Canada as part of a broader “national security” action to help the U.S. industry and furniture makers.
The move is expected to further strain trade relations with Canada, whose lumber companies already face duties ranging from 26 percent to nearly 48 percent under a longstanding trade case brought by U.S. producers.
It also comes as the trading partners are embarking on a mandatory review next year of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump negotiated during his first term to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.
US-Africa trade pact AGOA expires but hopes remain for renewal AGOA
The future of the US-Africa preferential trade pact was in limbo after the 25-year-old agreement expired on Tuesday — but hopes for its renewal persist.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act has allowed dozens of countries in sub-Saharan Africa duty-free access to the US market for certain products including fuel, agricultural goods, and textiles. In 2023, US imports under AGOA totaled nearly $10 billion.
For many countries, such as Kenya and Lesotho, the deal has been a cornerstone of trade with the US, and envoys from across the continent have traveled to Washington in recent weeks to lobby for AGOA’s extension. The deal’s expiration has plunged thousands of factory workers into uncertainty at a time when African countries are already grappling with the impact of new US tariffs that imposed import taxes on many products which were previously duty-free under AGOA.
But there are some signs AGOA will be renewed, with a White House official telling Reuters the Trump administration supports a one-year extension of the pact. It is unclear when or how such a renewal would take place, with earlier reports suggesting an extension might be attached to a stopgap US government funding bill that failed to pass on Tuesday.
Court Overturns FMC’s D&D Billing Limits: WSC Wins Right to Bill Motor Carriers (Sept. 23, 2025)
The D.C. Circuit Court struck down part of the FMC’s 2024 rule, vacating the restriction that limited detention and demurrage invoices to shippers and consignees. Ocean carriers can now bill trucking companies directly when contracts are in place. Blue Cargo provides insights into this decision on their blog.
Industry Insight:
Clearing the Way: Product Passports Are Changing Trade
Amy Morgan, AAEI Board Member and VP of Trade Compliance at Altana, shares how trade has never had its own “fast pass”—until now. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in partnership with the Global Business Identifier (GBI) pilot, is adopting Altana Product Passports as a new way to validate goods before they reach the border. A simple idea with transformational potential: a digital passport for every product.
