Large steel and aluminum corporations and associations representing small and medium-sized metal processors, recyclers and environmental advocates told the International Trade Commission that it's on the right track in the questions it's asking about embedded carbon in steelmaking and aluminum smelting, but that choosing detailed data is tricky, and, in some cases, not possible for smaller companies to produce. Broadly, there are scope 1 emissions, which are the greenhouse gases produced through onsite processes; scope 2, which cover the purchased electricity needed for manufacturing and scope 3, which cover the embedded carbon of inputs, whether raw materials or semifinished goods.
A former EU director general for the bloc's climate action directorate defended its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, saying it's not designed to protect European heavy industry against imports from lower-cost economies.
Because China is undermining the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) with its domestic market for pangolins and pangolin products, the White House should ban the import of "associated fish and wildlife" from China, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., ranking member on the House Natural Resources Committee, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., ranking member on the House Select committee on China, argue.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said there is no interest in offering Taiwan "a very, very comprehensive, maximally liberalizing, aggressively liberalizing agreement." Tai, who was speaking at the Aspen Security Forum Dec. 7, was asked if the administration would pursue a free trade agreement with Taiwan, since Congress passed a bill welcoming such a negotiation. "We're not doing that with anybody right now," she added.
If a bill just introduced becomes law, importers of fossil fuels, refined petroleum products, petrochemicals, fertilizer, hydrogen, adipic acid, cement, iron and steel, aluminum, glass, pulp, paper, lime and gypsum products and ethanol would have to pay a duty at the border based on the carbon intensity of either the industry in the home country, the product, if a specific petition was made, or an economywide carbon intensity measure, if no reliable data is available by industry.
China's stranglehold on minerals used in electric vehicle battery-making, and their head start on making quality, affordable EVs makes U.S. and European firms anxious, panelists said at a Georgetown Business School webinar on the future of auto value chains.
A bipartisan, bicameral bill would allow cashmere products made in Mongolia duty-free access to the U.S., as a way of strengthening Mongolia's democracy, its sponsors say.
Automakers will have to track almost every battery component for electric vehicles -- including cathode electrodes, anode electrodes, solid metal electrodes, separators, liquid electrolytes, and solid state electrolytes that go into battery cells -- if they want consumers to be able to benefit from the full $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles.
A House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy and Regulatory Affairs hearing focused on the need for more domestic mining of critical minerals, but administration witnesses noted that imports -- and subsidizing processing of domestically mined minerals -- are just as essential to uninterrupted supply.
Asian countries in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and businesses that export to those countries had low expectations for IPEF, and trade experts said it will take years to see if IPEF will have any commercially meaningful outcomes.