FX168 (ASIa Pacific) News: US news website Axios reported on Tuesday (September 8) that US President Donald Trump is considering a more aggressive trade war tool than imposing tariffs — directly barring foreign goods from the US market.
This means the Trump administration’s trade agenda may see a major shift. In the past, tariffs have been its most representative trade instrument, but now "import bans" and even "cutting off trade" are appearing more and more frequently in statements by Trump and his senior trade officials.
Compared with tariffs, such measures may trigger a more drastic economic impact.
When faced with tariffs, enterprises can choose to absorb part of the costs themselves, pass the costs on to consumers, or adopt a combination of both. However, if a key component or commodity is completely banned from entering the United States, enterprises will face more than just "price hikes". They may suffer supply shortages, production halts, and be forced to find alternative suppliers within a short period.
In other words, tariffs change the "price" for goods to enter the US market, while import bans determine whether goods can enter the US at all.
Bombardier Becomes the Latest Target
The latest trigger comes from Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier.
Hours before Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on approximately $20 billion worth of US goods, Trump threatened to ban Bombardier from selling aircraft in the United States.
Trump wrote on Truth Social: "No more Bombardier sales in the United States!"
He further stated that if Bombardier wants access to the US market, it must produce in the United States, and accused Canada of treating America like an "ATM".
This threat is not an isolated incident; it may reflect a broader shift in Trump’s trade strategy. Trump’s latest remarks targeting Bombardier have been covered by multiple media outlets.
A few days earlier, after the United States released a strong employment report, Trump once again used social media to demand that the Federal Reserve cut interest rates, linking this demand to wide-ranging trade threats.
Trump stated that if interest rates were not lowered, he would halt trade with countries that run trade deficits with the United States, and specifically emphASIzed:
"This is better than tariffs!"
Taken literally, such threats could theoretically involve economies with large merchandise trade deficits with the United States such as Canada and Japan. Trump has recently publicly tied demands for interest rate cuts to severing trade ties with deficit nations.
Senior US Trade Officials Also Talk About "Bans"
Notably, these are not merely personal remarks from Trump.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has recently publicly discussed the possibility of directly imposing trade bans, viewing it as a potential tool for the United States to respond to Canada’s retaliatory tariffs.
According to Greer, the United States has not adopted this type of ban in the past, making it quite an extreme measure, yet the current administration has begun seriously discussing this possibility.
This sends a signal worthy of market attention: the Trump administration’s trade policy toolkit may be expanding beyond traditional tariffs to import restrictions, market access bans and even direct suspension of certain trade flows.
Why Are "Import Bans" Potentially More Dangerous Than Tariffs?
One key reason lies in legislation.
The US Supreme Court previously blocked Trump from using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose emergency tariffs, yet a critical distinction emerged in this legal dispute: while the law may not authorize the president to levy tariffs under IEEPA, it explicitly includes powers to restrict or prohibit certain transactions and imports.
This means that under certain circumstances, Trump may have clearer legal grounds to directly restrict imports than to impose emergency tariffs.
Trump said after the ruling: "I can impose an embargo, but I cannot collect one dollar in tariffs."
This legal contrast was also debated in Supreme Court hearings — the president theoretically may have authority to completely cut off certain trade, but may not be able to impose low emergency tariffs.
In addition, the Trump administration has other potential legal tools.
For example, Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 allows the president, under specific conditions, to restrict or even exclude goods from a country from entering the US market. Trump has previously invoked this provision in trade actions against Canada.
From "Making Your Goods More Expensive" to "Banning Your Sales Entirely"
The United States has banned imported goods before, but such measures have mostly been used in economic sanctions against hostile countries, rather than in trade battles with close economic partners like Canada.
This is exactly why the current situation deserves attention.
If import bans are systematically used as bargaining chips in trade negotiations, the logic of US trade policy may change markedly:
In the past, tariffs were raised to increase the cost for foreign enterprises to enter the US market; in the future, threats may directly involve loss of US market access.
For multinational corporations, the risks of the two are completely different.
Tariffs mean shrinking profit margins, higher costs and price adjustments; denial of market access may mean the direct disappearance of sales channels, forcing enterprises to rebuild supply chains and production layouts.
Yet the "powerful weapon" may also backfire on the United States
The Bombardier incident also exposes the biggest practical obstacle of this policy tool: global supply chains are highly intertwined today. Driving a foreign enterprise out of the US market does not mean economic losses will only occur overseas.
Bombardier has extensive operations and supply chain networks in the United States.
The company states its supply chain involves roughly 2,800 enterprises across 47 US states and directly or indirectly supports numerous US jobs; important components including aircraft wings are manufactured in the United States.
Kansas deserves particular attention.
Bombardier employs more than 1,000 staff in Wichita and occupies an important position in the local aviation industrial chain. Therefore, after Trump threatened to ban Bombardier products from entering the US, Republican lawmakers from Kansas quickly voiced concerns.
Republican Senator Jerry Moran said he has contacted the Trump administration to ensure the president understands Bombardier’s important contributions to Kansas’ economy. Associated Press reports also show Kansas lawmakers are communicating with the White House about potential employment and economic impacts.
This precisely reveals the double-edged sword nature of import bans.
Under a highly globalized supply chain system, a so-called "Canadian aircraft" may rely heavily on US-made components, US engineering services and US suppliers. A full import ban would impact not only Canadian producers, but also US domestic suppliers, workers and related industries.
Therefore, what truly merits attention next is not merely whether Trump ultimately bans Bombardier aircraft from entering the United States, but whether "import bans" will evolve from a threat targeting a Canadian enterprise into a regular trade weapon of the Trump administration.
If this trend materializes, in the next phase of Trump’s second-term trade war, markets may no longer worry only about "how high tariffs will rise", but face a more extreme question:
Will the United States directly close its market doors to certain countries and enterprises?