House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., who leads the working group negotiating with the U.S. trade representative over the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, said he anticipates that USTR Robert Lighthizer will send over text of the changes to the agreement next week. Neal said he spoke with Lighthizer Nov. 14, to tell him he'd be forwarding “a series of, we think, could be make-or-break issues, and that we hoped that he would digest them and then respond to us, fast."
Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, the National Taxpayers Union and 16 other groups sent a letter Nov. 15 to every member of Congress urging them to reject pension reform legislation that has been talked about as a possible companion to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement implementing bill (see 1910160054). "Attaching any of them to other legislation, from must-pass appropriations to the USMCA trade agreement, is unacceptable," the groups said.
Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer said he doesn't know if they'll to be able to evaluate the details of the U.S.-Japan skinny trade deal in the hearing scheduled for next week, because the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has not released the text yet. He said in a Nov. 13 interview it's “troubling" that the House Ways and Means Committee has not received text of the deal, which was signed Sept. 26. "Sometimes dealing with USTR can be a little opaque, which is one of my constants through several administrations," he said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Export-Import Bank renewal a very important piece of legislation, at her press conference Nov. 14, and said it shouldn't be a bill that divides the two parties. However, The United States Export Finance Agency Act of 2019, which reauthorizes the Ex-Im Bank for 10 years, passed out of committee with no Republican support.
The House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee will hold a hearing Nov. 20 on the U.S.-Japan mini trade deal, and on the prospects for a second phase of negotiations to reach a more comprehensive agreement. It starts at 10 a.m. in Room 2020 Rayburn.
On a day when more than two dozen House Republicans tweeted that their chamber should pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement -- most contrasting the impeachment movement with the lack of action on the trade deal -- the Democrats' No. 2 said his party's members want to finish negotiations with the U.S. trade representative and get the bill under consideration.
Two congresswomen are asking for more signatures for a letter that applauds the Commerce Department’s decision to place eight Chinese technology companies on the Entity List and urges the administration not to make concessions on the list in trade negotiations.The letter, written by Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., and Ann Wagner, R-Mo., to be sent to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, also urges the State Department to impose sanctions on China for its oppression of the Uighur population.
The Border Trade Alliance is asking House and Senate appropriators to dedicate enough funding to hire an additional 1,200 CBP officers. "Current staffing levels fail to address the growing demands of travel and trade at our ports-of-entry," the Oct. 28 BTA letter said. Long waits increase supply chain costs, they said. Providing additional CBP officers at this time of growing volumes of international passengers and cargo would both reduce lengthy wait times and facilitate new economic opportunities in communities throughout the United States.
A Turkey sanctions bill passed 403-16 on Oct. 29 in the House of Representatives, despite Turkey's decision to stop shelling a part of Syria near its border. The bill requires the government to impose financial sanctions on Halkbank, a Turkish-owned bank involved in Iranian sanctions evasions, which also employed a client of the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
The House is scheduled to mark up a bill on Oct. 29 that would reauthorize the Export-Import Bank until 2029, increase the bank’s lending authority and introduces a “temporary board” in a situation where the bank lacks a quorum in the future. The bill, introduced by House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., would also rename the bank the Export Finance Agency. Among the most notable portions of the bill is a provision that would increase the bank’s lending power gradually over several years, from $145 billion in 2020 to $175 billion in 2026.