European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager told reporters that a trade war over America's Inflation Reduction Act's discrimination against European production of EVs and EV batteries is not where Europe wants to go.
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.
While it's not yet clear if Democrats and Republicans can agree on whether the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and Miscellaneous Tariff Bill will advance this month, House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., says he's not for the proposal to offer a partial refund while importers wait for GSP renewal. The preferences program will have been expired for two years if it does not get renewed this month. He said, "We had a nice conversation with [U.S. Trade Representative] Katherine Tai this morning. We know [renewal] should happen, and we hope it does."
At a press conference at the end of the first day of the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that the U.S. and EU are "on track" to reach an agreement on preferencing trade in fairly traded clean steel and aluminum by next November. The two sides gave themselves that deadline when the U.S. said it was moving from tariffs on EU steel to a tariff-rate quota approach.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and her EU counterpart Valdis Dombrovskis reviewed their civil aircraft working group's ongoing analysis "related to Chinese non-market policies and practices in the sector, such as industrial planning and targeting, discriminatory and anti-competitive activities of State- or Party- controlled entities, State-directed purchases, financial support, and forced technology transfer policies. They also exchanged views on the long-term risks to their market-oriented sectors from China’s state-directed industrial dominance goals." Tariffs on European goods and tariffs on U.S. exports related to the Airbus-Boeing subsidy dispute were lifted in June 2021, but the U.S. said its tariffs were paused for five years as the two sides try to work out a permanent agreement on subsidies and on protecting their industries from Chinese competition that they say is a result of oversubsidization and other trade abuses.
Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Chris Coons, D-Del, laid out parameters of a trade package they hope to get passed in the next three weeks in Congress.
At the first U.S.-EU Trade and Labor Dialogue, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Deputy Undersecretary of Labor for International Affairs Thea Lee and European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis talked about leveraging trade tools between the United States and the European Union to eliminate forced labor in the global economy," according to a USTR readout of the Dec. 5 meeting.
With just four weeks until many of the rules for subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act are scheduled to begin, Europeans continue to press for a strategy that includes European manufacturers rather than preferencing the North American auto industry -- and Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said, "We are leaving this meeting slightly more optimistic than we were entering this meeting."
A readout of a Dec. 1 meeting between U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Mexican Economy Secretary Raquel Buenrostro, a new appointee, said Tai "reiterated the importance" of Mexico imposing a ban on the import of goods made with forced labor. Tai also said it's urgent consultations over what the U.S. sees as discriminatory investment policies in Mexico's energy sector make "meaningful progress."
Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., introduced a bill that would refund tariffs on imports that were hit with 25% tariffs during the Airbus-Boeing dispute, and also would prevent tariffs from being applied to goods on the water in the future.
President Joe Biden, at a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, called the language on critical mineral sourcing in the Inflation Reduction Act a glitch, and said the U.S. can tweak the IRA in ways "that can fundamentally make it easier for European countries to participate, and/or be on their own."