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."
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.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a conference that Canada had to talk the U.S. out of structuring its Inflation Reduction Act electric vehicle incentives so that they were tied solely to U.S. production.
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would impose the contract that eight rail unions approved but four rejected, a contract that protects health insurance benefits and increases pay 24% across four years, with more than half of those pay increases applied retroactively, since the last contract expired in mid-2020.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., one of the primary movers behind the Chips Act, told an audience that more domains need policymakers' attention so that they don't wake up to find that China has become dominant in an important emerging technology. He noted that before becoming a politician, he "was in the telecommunication space," and said that realizing that China is dominating 5G with two heavily subsidized champion companies was the "final wake-up call" that engagement and deeper trade with China is not the right way to go.
Lawyers from BakerHostetler that represent the Conseil de l’industrie forestière du Québec and the Ontario Forest Industries Association are using a Commerce Department comment process for softwood lumber subsidies to argue once again that the countervailing duty case against Canadian lumber exports contradicts the USMCA Environment Chapter commitments and Biden administration environment and social justice priorities.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, who will be meeting later this week with French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, released a readout of a video call the two had, in which she and her counterpart ''discussed France’s concerns over certain provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. Ambassador Tai and Minister Le Maire agreed that the U.S. and European Union should work together to deepen the bilateral understanding of the legislation, which makes historic investments in green technology and clean energy in order to fight the climate crisis."
The early submissions to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on whether the 7.5% and 25% tariffs on Chinese goods should continue were heavily against continuing the action. More than 90% of the 27 submissions either said end all the tariffs or urged dropping the ones that affect businesses or workers.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., and two colleagues introduced a bill that would extend normal trade relations for exports from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Although Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are members of the World Trade Organization, they still have temporary normal trade relations with the U.S. The countries have had temporary NTR since the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union broke up.
House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to consider doing an out-of-cycle review on Ethiopia's eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act preferences program. Ethiopia lost its eligibility at the beginning of 2022 (see 2111020035) because the U.S. said its government was violating human rights as it tried to quell a rebellion in the Tigray region. Ethiopia was exporting more than $100 million annually of apparel and textiles to the U.S. before it was ousted from AGOA.
A report from Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee in Congress said that while the Federal Reserve is doing the right thing to drive down inflation, Congress should act to remove Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, and Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum. "These 2018-2020 era tariffs are currently in effect on $280 billion of U.S. imports, imposing a $50 billion annual cost burden on U.S. producers and consumers that use imported goods. Estimates suggest that removing recently imposed tariffs on imports from China, steel and aluminum imports, and Canadian lumber imports could deliver a one-time inflation reduction of 1.3 percentage point," the report said. There is no mechanism for Congress to roll back the softwood lumber duties, as they are antidumping and countervailing duties. However, the U.S. used to lower the trade remedies when the cost of lumber rose above certain thresholds.