Congress passed a law in December that gave the Commerce Department a deadline of Jan. 19 to release its report on the national security threat of imported autos and auto parts. On Jan. 21, Commerce told Congress it would not do so. Sen. Pat Toomey, the Pennsylvania Republican who sponsored the provision in the annual spending bill, responded that “the Department of Commerce is willfully violating federal law. This is unacceptable, and my staff and I are evaluating the potential for corrective action to compel the rightful release of this report.”
Tariffs on French champagne, cheeses, handbags and other products (see 2001060040) will not be coming, several news outlets are reporting, since France has agreed not to impose a Digital Services Tax in 2020 as negotiations continue at the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development on a fair way to impose income taxes on companies such as Google and Amazon.
An expert panel evaluating the changes associated with the labor chapter under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement say that there are a lot of unknown details on the rapid response mechanism to enforce complaints about collective bargaining in Mexico. The panel spoke at the Washington International Trade Association on Jan. 16.
The tariffs on billions of dollars worth of European goods because the World Trade Organization found the EU illegally subsidized Airbus puts Europe in a position where it will need to take similar action, assuming the WTO rules that state tax credits for Boeing also distorted trade. “This is where I don't want to be,” European Union Commissioner Phil Hogan said during a press roundtable with reporters late Jan. 16.
Whether the flow of counterfeit goods shipped from China will abate as a result of the phase one U.S.-China trade agreement is yet to be seen, but Craig Allen, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said the “language was pretty detailed and complete.” Allen, who was responding to a question from International Trade Today during a Jan. 16 conference call, said this represents “a huge shift in the official Chinese attitude. We should be appreciative of the Chinese government commitment here to better police that [counterfeit problem] internally and at their own border.”
The joint statement on how to confront Chinese abuses through the World Trade Organization (see 2001140044) has been the highlight of the first visit to Washington by Phil Hogan, the new European Union Trade Commissioner. Hogan, who spoke to the Center for Strategic and International Studies Jan. 16, acknowledged that the WTO doesn't have the capacity to act on these ideas “quickly enough.”
The Senate overwhelmingly passed the new NAFTA, though it wasn't by quite as wide a margin as in the House, where more than 95 percent of votes were for the trade pact. The vote, which happened just before the reading of the impeachment articles against President Donald Trump on Jan. 16, was 89-10, with only one Republican voting no. Most of the Democrats who voted no did so because the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement doesn't address climate change.
The Senate passed the U.S-Canada-Mexico Agreement, the replacement for NAFTA, with an 89-10 vote. Now the implementing bill heads to President Donald Trump's desk to be signed. The Canadian parliament must also still ratify the agreement.
Four Senate committees reported the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement out, clearing the way for a floor vote Jan. 16. The Foreign Relations Committee and Commerce Committee had voice votes. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted 22-1 in favor, with Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent senator from Vermont, the only no vote, though Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who previously voted no in the Finance Committee, was not present and did not vote by proxy. In the Appropriations Committee, 29 senators voted for the implementing bill, and two voted no -- Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.
The U.S. will reduce tariffs on about 3,800 8-digit tariff lines from 15 percent to 7.5 percent in 30 days, a senior administration official said. That's the day the phase one agreement with China will go into force, he said on a conference call with reporters. Aside from that issue, most of the agreement affects exporters and companies that invest in China more than it does importers.