University of Delaware Professor Sheng Lu, who specializes in Fashion and Apparel Studies, told an audience from the U.S. Fashion Industry Association that although there are good reasons to want to source more apparel from Central America and the Dominican Republic -- to avoid forced labor from Xinjiang or generally reduce China exposure -- growth is unlikely unless Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement countries are able to access more nylon, viscose, wool or linen fabrics.
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.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is asking the State Department to warn Uganda's president that if he signs a bill that discriminates against gay and lesbian citizens, his country's participation in the African Growth and Opportunity Act will be revoked.
Some U.S. states were willing to pay Volkswagen more than Canada was for a new Volkswagen electric vehicle factory, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. But, Trudeau said, when Canada matched the national incentives offered by the Inflation Reduction Act, Ontario's other advantages were enough to land the major economic development win.
A majority in the House voted to restore antidumping and countervailing duties on Southeast Asian solar panels ruled by the Commerce Department to be circumventing antidumping duties on the products from China, but the 221 votes in favor are far from a veto-proof majority.
Mexico intervened in a union election at Goodyear in San Luis Potosi, a plant that has drawn attention from Democrats in Congress for years because there was a wildcat strike by workers, and 57 of them were fired (see 1906250025). The election was to see if workers wanted to retain a captive union that had not supported the wildcat strike. The Mexican government, which was observing the election, said it would order a redo of that election, because both observers from the Federal Labor Center and video evidence revealed that the incumbent union stole a ballot box.
The Inflation Reduction Act will encourage the building of "a clean energy manufacturing ecosystem, rooted in supply chains here in North America and extending to Europe, Japan and elsewhere," National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a speech April 27 in Washington. "This is how we will turn the IRA from a source of friction to a source of strength and reliability."
Although President Joe Biden has threatened to veto a resolution that would retroactively collect trade remedies on some solar panels from Southeast Asia with Chinese inputs, several Democratic senators said they would vote for the resolution if it came up in the Senate. Biden had put a pause on the duties through June 2024, and announced the action before the Commerce Department made its preliminary finding that certain solar panels made in Southeast Asia should be considered of Chinese origin, and are circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese solar cells.
Changes to the de minimis statute, whether excluding China or changing the threshold, have gotten the most attention in Congress of any possible customs legislative change, but CBP says its 21st Century Customs Framework will not touch the issue.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, speaking from Asia, where she had just finished a round of meetings with Philippine and Japanese officials, said the U.S.-China trade war did not come up in her meetings, as these visits focused much more on the bilateral trade and economic relationship.
Three senators asked Shein's CEO if the company's suppliers use cotton from Xinjiang, if they use laboratory testing to ensure there is no Xinjiang cotton in its garments, and other questions aimed at learning whether apparel made in part with forced labor is making it into the U.S. through the de minimis importation lane (see 2302090039).