European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters after her meeting with President Joe Biden that he agrees that the goal should be for critical minerals processed, mined or recycled in the EU to qualify under Inflation Reduction Act standards for electric vehicle batteries.
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.
The victories that countries won at the World Trade Organization over American steel and aluminum tariffs (see 2212090060) will only complicate the discussion on how to bring back binding dispute settlement, panelists said at a Washington International Trade Association event.
Level the Playing Field Act 2.0, a bill that would rewrite antidumping and countervailing duty laws, has found a Republican co-sponsor after the retirement of the Republican co-sponsor on the bipartisan bill introduced in 2021 (see 2104160037).
The U.S. government, dissatisfied with the narrowing of a Mexican ban on genetically modified corn (see 2302150026), has asked for technical consultations under the USMCA's sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) chapter. A formal dispute can't be initiated without first taking this step.
Although the Biden administration took unprecedented action to shield solar panel importers from antidumping and countervailing duties -- after hearing from a third of the Senate's Democratic caucus and two Republicans that the anti-circumvention investigation was harming the solar installation industry -- the political pressure has not abated.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will meet with President Joe Biden March 10, and will discuss "U.S.-EU coordination to combat the climate crisis through investing in clean technology based on secure supply chains," the White House said March 2.
China's military ambitions, its role in the fentanyl crisis and Chinese purchases of U.S. farmland all got attention during the first hearing of the Select Committee on China -- but trade, and China's distortions of the global market, were the focus of both Democrats' and Republicans' questions to witnesses from the Trump administration and the head of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jayme White, speaking during a panel discussion with representatives from USMCA partners, said the NAFTA rewrite's credibility is on the line if enforcement is weak. White, who discussed USMCA implementation on a Brookings Institution panel along with a Canadian minister and a Mexican senator who leads that body's Special Committee for USMCA Implementation, said if promises on environmental rules, labor standards and energy aren't fulfilled, workers will say: "Well, you don't enforce it."
The House Ways and Means Committee passed an oversight plan (see 2302270041) for the 118th Congress along party lines Feb. 28.
On the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the White House said that, beginning March 10, there will be a 200% tariff on Russian aluminum exports, including derivative products, and, beginning on April 10, aluminum articles from other countries that used any aluminum from Russia also will be tariffed at 200%, unless those third countries also impose 200% tariffs on imported Russian aluminum.