Twenty-two Republican senators -- including the top Republicans on the Senate Finance and Agriculture committees and one of the front-runners to replace Minority Leader Mitch McConnell -- argue that the "current sharp decline in U.S. agricultural exports is directly attributable to and exacerbated by an unambitious U.S. trade strategy that is failing to meaningfully expand market access or reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade."
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.
Panelists from the U.S. and Mexico said that cars assembled in Mexico by Chinese-owned firms can't enter the U.S. with USMCA benefits because of the stringent rules of origin, but spent less time talking about how cars manufactured outside China, including in the U.S., could enter under 2.5% most favored nation tariffs.
Ten senators have introduced a bill to require that the administration reinstate 25% tariffs on Mexican steel imports for at least one year, because they say that Mexico is not honoring the 2019 agreement that lifted Section 232 tariffs on Mexico and Canada. A companion bill was also introduced in the House.
International Trade Commissioners grappled with how they should fulfill the administration's request for a report on the export competitiveness of the Bangladeshi, Indian, Cambodian, Indonesian and Pakistani apparel sectors over the last 11 years -- is it to uncover how those countries' successes could offer lessons to other developing countries that want to industrialize? Is the success of Bangladesh, which is near to crossing the threshold into a middle-income country largely on the strength of its garment sector, a country with an "unnatural and unfair advantage," because of its suppression of unions and wages, as the AFL-CIO's Eric Gottwald asserted?
House Ways and Means Subcommitee Chair Mike Kelly, R-Pa., warned that the committee would not "stand by idly and watch the Biden administration and Treasury Department sacrifice American tax dollars for political gain." Kelly, who was holding a hearing this week on the implications of international negotiations on extra-territorial taxes, including digital services taxes, said the draft deal at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development will disadvantage U.S. firms.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she will be bringing up China's overproduction of electric vehicles as part of the 2026 USMCA review process, implying that she expects Mexico to reject Chinese investment in its auto manufacturing sector.
A bipartisan bill has been introduced that would set country-by-country de minimis levels, instruct the administration to reconsider U.S. tariffs "with the focus on the principle of reciprocity" for most favored nation rates, and open a dialogue with Mexico and Canada on allowing Costa Rica and Uruguay to join USMCA.
Both co-sponsors of a bill to restrict Chinese goods from de minimis eligibility said that House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., who has the power to advance the bill, is interested in marking up the bill.
House Republican conservatives want to end Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and have introduced a bill that urges the U.S. trade representative to negotiate free trade agreements with Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, New Zealand, and the U.K. so that importers can have alternatives to Chinese suppliers at a lower cost.
Funding for the next seven months for the trade-related divisions of the Commerce Department will be down slightly, though fees may more than make up the difference at the International Trade Administration, if projections are accurate. These are considerations as Congress eyes finalizing an appropriations bill by the end of the workweek.