Wilbur Ross: US Ready to Fire 'Cocked Pistol' Section 301 Tariffs on China

If talks do not resolve the trade imbalance between China and the United States, the Trump administration is ready to enact a strict series of damaging economic sanctions, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Monday.

The trade sanctions, known as Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, is a "cocked pistol" that would bring serious consequences against China, Ross told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on "Mornings With Maria."

"The [Section] 301 is a cocked pistol that's ready to be fired whenever it needs to be fired," said Ross about the law, which allows a president to impose trade sanctions on foreign countries.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday the looming trade war between the United States and China was on hold, after they agreed to drop their threats of tariffs while working on a more wide trade agreement.

He and Trump's top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said the new agreement, reached Saturday, sets up the framework to address future trade imbalances.

Ross, though, said their agreement is "not definitive."

"This is what we hope will be a path forward," he said. "If it doesn't work the tariffs will go into effect. So, nothing's been lost at all."

Ross said the agreement has some "specific thoughts on specific products, which we'll be trying to flush out and it covered lots of other things – the intellectual property, forced technology transfers – a whole gamut of things."

However, tariffs cannot be enacted at the same time a detailed arrangement is being negotiated, Ross said, so that is why there is a hold.

Meanwhile, it will take a while to address all of the issues, including theft of intellectual property, the forced technology transfer, the opening of markets in China, and the matter of increasing exports, Ross said.

"It is true that there are a lot of problems that we're trying to address in this framework and it's going to take a while to see how far we really get, how much closure we get and really the devil is in the details," Ross said.

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