Yesterday, the Office of the United States Trade Representative released 19 megabytes worth of documents related to Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, which are available both at this link and at this link. The records are heavily redacted, and what the government is hiding through its redactions is probably even more interesting than what it released.
Examples of the records are a March 27, 2025 email sent by Steven Croley, Chief Policy Officer and General Counsel of Ford Motor Company, to officials in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, stating, “Hi, Jennifer and Sam. Bill and I had an extraordinary day yesterday. All good. We ended up watching the Oval announcement on TV at Commerce, while waiting for Secretary Lutnick to return. Anyway, we have one very important item to raise with you, concerning the IEEPA tariff order. If either of you has a couple minutes for a call, I would make myself available at any time. We raised it with Vice President Vance this morning, and will get back to him and his team, but I wanted to coordinate with you first. Thanks again for the meeting, and your hard work on this issue. We appreciate it very much.”
The records were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Bader Family Foundation last year. The case is Bader Family Foundation v. Office of the United States Trade Representative, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The government has cited exemptions 4, 5, and 6 of the Freedom of Information Act to redact large portions of the records. Those redactions can be challenged at a later time in the lawsuit. For example, privacy-related redactions under Exemption 6 can be challenged if the government fails to show that privacy interests clearly outweigh the public interest in disclosing a document in full. Redactions under Exemption 5 (the deliberative process privilege) can be challenged if the government did things that waived that privilege, such as sharing a document with people outside the government.
The Bader Family Foundation sued the Office of the United States Trade Representative last August because it failed to comply with the statutory deadlines contained in the Freedom of Information Act. It not produce any records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request despite the passage of months, and did not even produce a response indicating if or when it would produce records, as FOIA requires government agencies to do within 20 working days after receiving a FOIA request.
I would have expected to see more ambivalence from Ford Motor Company about the tariffs. While U.S. automakers benefit from tariffs on imported automobiles, they can be injured by tariffs on auto parts, because they import some auto parts to assemble into their automobiles. Moreover, U.S. automakers like Ford can be harmed by steel and aluminum tariffs, which increase the cost of the steel and aluminum they use in producing automobiles. Economists say tariffs on aluminum and steel wipe out more U.S. jobs than they save, by increasing the costs of manufacturers who make things out of aluminum and steel.
In an email releasing the records, the Office of the United States Trade Representative stated:
This email is a partial response from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in the matter of Bader Family Foundation v. Office of The United States Trade Representative concerning request FY25-94 submitted on requesting records discussing whether tariffs exceed the President’s authority under IEEPA or are constitutional, USTR’s response to an application for a TRO, and all correspondence with Tesla, GM or Ford regarding tariffs since March 1, 2025. The timeframe for the search was between March 1, 2025 and May 20, 2025. This production consists of 189 pages responsive to FOIA request FY25-94, which we are releasing in part. Portions of the documents have been redacted because we reasonably foresee that disclosure would harm an interest protected by FOIA Exemption 4, FOIA Exemption 5, and FOIA Exemption 6.
FOIA Exemption 4 protects, among other things, confidential or privileged commercial or financial information. In this instance, we redacted proprietary data from Ford and GM companies, which both customarily and actually treat data and analysis prepared for its subscribers as private. Releasing proprietary information would place them at a competitive and commercial disadvantage. Because these organizations do not customarily release this information to the public and it is not available to the public from other sources, the information is confidential for the purposes of Exemption 4 and we have withheld it.
FOIA Exemption 5, the deliberative process privilege, protects the decision-making processes of the executive branch in order to safeguard the quality and integrity of governmental decisions. The deliberative process privilege protects materials that are both pre-decisional and deliberative. The privilege covers records that reflect the give-and-take of the consultative process and may include recommendations, draft documents, proposals, suggestions and other subjective documents which reflect the personal opinions of the writer rather than the policy of the agency. The materials that have been withheld do not contain or represent formal or informal agency policies or decisions. The release of these drafts would expose USTR’s decision-making process in such a way as to discourage candid discussion within the agency, and thereby undermine its ability to perform its mandated function.
Finally, we reasonably foresee that disclosure would harm an interest protected by FOIA Exemption 6, which protects personal information the release of which would not shed light on the performance of the agency’s statutory duties.
USTR will continue to provide records as they become available.
The Freedom of Information Act request had sought the following records in May 2025:
1. All emails and memoranda sent between March 1, 2025 and the date you process this FOIA request, about whether a tariff or set of tariffs exceeds the President’s authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.
2. All emails and memoranda sent between March 1, 2025 and the date you process this FOIA request, about whether a tariff or group of tariffs is unconstitutional.
3. All correspondence sent between March 1, 2025 and the date you process this request, between Tesla, General Motors, or Ford Motor Company and the Office of the United States Trade Representative, about tariffs.
4. Any response by or on behalf of the Office of the United States Trade Representative to any application for a temporary restraining order in any legal challenge to a tariff or group of tariffs, filed between March 1, 2025 and the date you process this request.
The court complaint filed in the lawsuit against the U.S. Trade Representative is available at this link.
I have not had a chance to read most of the records that were released yet. I have been busy doing various tax returns.
