Senate Democrats would like to increase funding for CBP's Office of Trade by $10 million to better identify and prevent entry of goods made with forced labor, and an additional $10 million for trade enforcement, including the 21st Century Framework initiative, enforcement of safeguard and sections 232 and 301 tariffs, and going after online counterfeiting.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Oct. 11-15 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Even with the surge of migrants crossing the Mexican border, the nominee to lead CBP fielded plenty of questions on trade during his appearance in front of the Senate Finance Committee. Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told him, "This committee has a special interest in ensuring that CBP’s trade mission doesn’t get short shrift. Enforcing trade laws vigorously and working to stay a step ahead of trade cheats is key to protecting jobs, businesses and innovators in America, and CBP is right at the heart of that challenge. Too often in the past, including during the Trump administration, trade enforcement has been a secondary issue for CBP." He said his committee "is going to continue looking for ways to strengthen our trade enforcement even further."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, framing the resolution of the Section 232 tariffs as being careful to guard against transshipment of Chinese steel and preventing import surges, is calling for an end to the tariffs on the European Union, Japan and Korea as quickly as possible. The organization put out a brief this week noting that the cost of steel in the U.S is spiking, and said, "a 'worker-centric' trade policy needs to take into account the U.S. workers employed in manufacturing industries that depend on steel as an input. These workers outnumber those in steel production by approximately 45-to-1, and these much larger industries are badly harmed by the higher costs and shortages imposed by tariffs."
The Court of International Trade granted the Department of Justice's motion to stay a case challenging the expansion of Section 232 duties on steel and aluminum “derivatives,” in an Oct. 14 order, due in part to the defendant's likelihood of succeeding on appeal. Finding that a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion indicates DOJ's chances of success at the appellate court, CIT also stayed any resulting liquidation but noted that the fact pattern in the present case reads differently from that of the recent Federal Circuit case.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she talked about "ongoing efforts to address global overcapacity in the steel and aluminum sectors and shared challenges posed by non-market economies" when she met with her European Union counterpart on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Sorrento, Italy. The EU did not issue its own readout of the meeting, but Valdis Dombrovskis tweeted, "Met [the] USTR, Ambassador Tai, to continue our discussions on finding a settlement on the Trump steel & aluminium tariffs #232. The work continues." He has previously said that an agreement on Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum has to be reached by early November in order to prevent retaliatory tariffs from doubling on Dec. 1. Those retaliatory tariffs have hurt the export of American spirits.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Oct. 4-8 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
CBP has assessed about $123.5 billion in duties under the major trade remedies started during the Trump administration, as of Oct. 7, according to CBP's trade statistics page. That includes $108 billion in duties from the Section 301 tariffs on goods from China, and $1.1 billion in Section 301 tariffs on goods from the European Union. CBP also has assessed about $8.8 billion under the Section 232 tariffs on steel and $2.7 billion under tariffs on aluminum. The Section 201 trade remedies on washing machines and washing machine parts account for about $277 million and the solar cells tariffs account for $2.7 billion in assessed tariffs.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said that while what he called the "food fight between Democrats" is preventing legislation from moving this year, "this next year would be an opportune time to have a conversation about [Section 232 reform] in a bipartisan way." Brady, who was responding to a question during a call with reporters Oct. 6, said he'd like to be a part of that conversation about the use of national security tariffs and Congress's role in setting tariffs.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., one of the original advocates for narrowing the authority of the executive branch to impose national security tariffs or quotas, has once again introduced a bipartisan bill to reform the legislation that delegated that authority. Toomey, joined by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., six other Democrats and 10 other Republicans, said the prior administrations abused Section 232 tariffs "to protect favored industries, which has resulted in economic disruption, damage to U.S. relationships with our allies, and harmful retaliatory tariffs on American farmers and manufacturers."