Reps. Mike Bost, R-Ill., and Terri Sewell, D-Ala., are co-sponsoring Fighting Trade Cheats Act, a companion to a bill introduced in the Senate in March (see 2303160067).
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.
House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., is questioning why Chinese intellectual property and components used in U.S. assembly plants for electric vehicle batteries and solar panels should be eligible for tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.
At a House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee hearing, Democrats talked up their legislative proposals -- two bipartisan, two not -- as answers to confronting China's trade agenda, and expressed skepticism of witnesses' advocacy for ending permanent normal trade relations with China, while some Republicans expressed interest in that approach, and one seemed cautious.
BOSTON -- In breakout sessions on operational perspectives on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the technology that can help importers do UFLPA due diligence, CBP officials acknowledged that it's hard to provide the sort of evidence required to clear an applicability review after goods are detained.
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., has reintroduced a bill that would ban the importation of fresh citrus from China, beginning 90 days after passage. Text of the U.S. Citrus Protection Act was published April 18. It has no co-sponsors.
Audience members looking for answers on how to navigate the rebuttable presumption of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act got no answers from a panel on human rights and "responsible business conduct," though they were told that if Sheffield Hallam University researchers can uncover links to forced labor in supply chains, it's not that hard for businesses to do the same.
When most people think of counterfeits in the U.S., they think of luxury fashion -- purses and watches -- but CBP also is concerned about safety issues from counterfeit medicines, sunscreen, baby formula and poorly made electronics whose lithium-ion batteries can cause fires.
Almost half of de minimis shipments last year were covered either by the Type 86 entry test or the Section 321 data pilot program, CBP said, but that doesn't mean that the government has a good grasp on what merchandise is entering in small packages.
A staff report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission says that Congress should consider that "current customs and tariff levels disproportionately benefit Chinese e-commerce firms," and that packages sent to U.S. consumers "are frequently not inspected. Those that are inspected are often subject to rudimentary visual checks without the technology or screening to trace fabric origin and other violations."
Most of the attention on the EU's hopes for better treatment under the Inflation Reduction Act electric vehicle tax incentives has been focused on the possibility that critical minerals processed, mined or recycled in the EU could qualify under content thresholds for friendshoring. However, half the tax credit is linked to North American assembly of battery components, and EU trade officials said that was not as damaging to EU interests as it could have been.