Grassley Says USTR Not Consulting on de Minimis
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said that while U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer may say he's consulting with the Finance Committee on changing de minimis levels for Canada and Mexico in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, "he hasn't consulted with me." Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was responding to a question from International Trade Today about how the committee could get past the impasse where members repeatedly tell USTR they want de minimis to stay as it is, and he says his staff are consulting with Congress before making a decision.
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Grassley said he doesn't have an answer to how to bridge the distance between them, but said: "We want the present policy." Grassley answered several questions on the new NAFTA as he took questions from reporters at the Capitol on July 31. He was asked about the idea of conditioning tariffs or entry of products on individual factories' compliance with Mexican labor laws, and said one approach (see 1904220031) "is a legitimate approach, but they have not fleshed it out."
He also said that he read that ratification could come up in September or early October "and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi was not going to go by the Hastert rule." The Hastert rule is a principle that the speaker will not bring a bill forward unless a majority of their party supports it.
When asked if the president would refrain from withdrawing from NAFTA if the vote didn't come until late October or early November, Grassley got agitated. "It's very necessary, regardless of when it comes up. Nothing's going to happen if Pelosi doesn't want it to happen. I think maybe you are giving too much weight to what some protectionists in the White House want, to force the issue, versus what the people that have common sense on trade want to do," he said, his voice rising. "We better keep our patience. Somebody there in the White House that doesn't have common sense better not push the president to do something erratic!"