Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters on Jan. 16 that he thinks President Donald Trump is "inclined to" levy higher tariffs on imported autos and auto parts, though he suggested that the process of doing so could be slowed because of the partial federal government shutdown. "Common sense tells me, if you're looking at a bureaucracy that was going to get something done on Feb. 15 and there's 30 days of missed work, it's going to come out March 15," he said.
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.
House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., will be introducing a resolution that would disapprove of the Trump administration's decision to lift sanctions on Russian aluminum producer Rusal and related companies (see 1812270035), which is due to take effect Jan. 18. In order to prevent the action, the Senate and the House must both disapprove of the sanctions' lifting. The Senate voted Jan. 15 to approve a motion to proceed to a resolution on disapproval. However, that is not the final word in the Senate.
The Senate voted 57-42 to proceed on a resolution of disapproval of the Trump administration's plan to lift sanctions on Russian aluminum producer Rusal and related companies. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued before the vote that the resolution is not a political stunt, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has alleged. He accused the administration of making its announcement before the Christmas holiday "hoping no one would notice."
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and nine other Democratic senators who wrote to him in October (see 1810230020) that there are no plans to allow for exemptions on the third round of Section 301 tariffs at the current rate. Those tariffs, now set at 10 percent on about 5,700 tariff lines that accounted for about $200 billion in Chinese imports in 2017, will jump to 25 percent March 2 if no deal is reached with China. Lighthizer said in his response, sent Jan. 11, that an exemption process will be implemented if the tariffs increase to 25 percent. A White House official had previously said there would be no exemptions for the 10 percent list (see 1812030042).
Turkey, in blocking the panel, said the U.S. request for a panel to judge its retaliatory tariffs is unfair because the U.S. took unwarranted and unjustified action to put 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum. Turkey -- along with many other countries -- sees the tariffs as a safeguard measure, not a national security matter. Unlike for other countries, the U.S. later, in August 2018, increased tariffs on Turkish steel to 50 percent (see 1808120001). Turkey will not be able to block the request at the next World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Body meeting, so it will go forward, and will be the sixth panel on retaliatory tariffs. The European Union, during the Jan. 11 DSB meeting, said that Turkey is standing up to U.S. abuse of the national security exception in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, according to a summary provided by a Geneva trade official.
Until Jan. 14, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative was able to use funding that had already been appropriated to keep all of its 265 staff paid, but the agency now has gone into furlough mode. Just 74 of the staff will continue working without pay, as excepted workers, the new way to refer to what used to be called essential workers. USTR said in a brief notice that those staffers will continue to conduct trade negotiations and enforcement. There has been no announcement of when negotiations with Japan on a new trade agreement might begin.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he will force a vote before Jan. 17 on a resolution that would stop the Treasury Department from lifting sanctions on Russian aluminum producer Rusal and related Russian companies. In order to stop the administration, both the House and Senate would have to vote for the joint resolution. In his press release announcing the intention, he said he "has concluded that the Treasury Department’s decision to lift sanctions on these three Russian companies was misguided and believes that the Senate must act to right the Trump Administration’s wrong, especially given the fact that the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation has not yet completed its work."
The U.S. trade representative will negotiate with the European Union to seek to "secure comprehensive market access for U.S. agricultural goods in the EU by reducing or eliminating tariffs," and eliminate "non-tariff barriers that discriminate against U.S. agricultural goods," the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue said the same things on trade he's been saying for months -- the tariffs on Chinese goods are paid by businesses, not China; the steel and aluminum tariffs in the NAFTA region have to go; the new NAFTA should be approved -- during his annual State of American Business address. "Now that we’ve struck a deal with Canada and Mexico, the administration must make good on its repeated promise to remove the steel and aluminum tariffs that were imposed in the heat of negotiations," Donohue said in his speech Jan. 10. "This would be an encouraging sign for all of our partners, including those we’re pursuing new market-opening agreements with -- Japan, the EU, and the UK."
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer issued a joint communique after a Jan. 9 trilateral meeting in Washington with EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom and Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Hiroshige Seko, to address non-market policies through the World Trade Organization (see 1901090023). They talked about finalizing text for the WTO on industrial subsidies by spring, and identified additional criteria that indicate market-oriented conditions. They are working on new rules on forced technology transfers, and coordinating on investment review and export controls. In Geneva in November 2018, they submitted a joint transparency and notification proposal to the Council for Trade in Goods and agreed during the meeting in Washington to work together to convince other countries to accept that notification proposal. They also are renewing their call for advanced WTO member countries that claim developing country status to stop using that status as an excuse to not undertake full commitments on trade within the organization.