During a wide-ranging interview on trade with International Trade Today, Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., said she would like to advance Section 232 reform in the House, get the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill back in place, and, if warranted, weigh in with the U.S. trade representative on USMCA.
Metal-using and other trade associations, including the U.S. Fashion Industry Association, the American Apparel and Footwear Association and the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, sent a letter June 9 to President Joe Biden asking him to expedite discussions with the European Union to address global steel and aluminum overcapacity so the Section 232 tariffs can be lifted as soon as possible. The 33 trade groups wrote, "These tariffs and quotas continue to hurt small, family-owned businesses and the communities in which they built their companies, while fracturing relations with overseas trading partners and spurring a frenzy of retaliatory trade measures against both related and unrelated industries."
A draft prepared in advance of the European Union-U.S. summit says the EU and the U.S. agree to work to find a way to roll back the Section 232 tariffs on European steel and aluminum by Dec. 1, Bloomberg reported June 8. The two sides previously said they were working on finding an effective way to counter Chinese overcapacity in metals by the end of the year, so the tariffs could be lifted. The EU has said it will immediately lift its retaliatory tariffs against American exports once the 232 tariffs are gone. The same draft also says the U.S. and the EU pledge to resolve the Airbus-Boeing dispute by July 11. That's when the temporary pause on tariffs on both sides is slated to end.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of May 24 - June 6.
The European Union's ambassador to the U.S. said that as the world watches the European Union-U.S. summit in a week, they will be looking to see that “we are capable of resolving quickly and effectively our bilateral trade irritants.” He said they also want to see “that we can work and will work together to address the new challenges that sit on the nexus of technology and trade and security.” He said that export controls and cyber security measures are some of the ways to address those challenges, and there should be an announcement at the conference on those matters.
The administration issued a lengthy report after a 100-day review of supply chain vulnerabilities that recommends a lot of reshoring of manufacturing, in semiconductors, critical minerals and pharmaceutical ingredients, but also suggests a "trade strike force" to be deployed against unfair foreign trade practices that have hurt domestic companies that contribute to critical supply chains.
A Japanese and a Korean economist said that trade tensions between their two countries are no longer really disrupting Korea's semiconductor industry, though they are still increasing costs for some of the Japanese exporters.
According to the White House budget, importers are expected to pay $85 billion in tariffs in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. But the administration projects that duties collections will fall to $57 billion in fiscal year 2022, and to $45 billion in FY23. Alvaro Ferreira, a consultant to Sandler Travis law firm and an economist by training, said he doesn't know what assumptions the Office of Management and Budget used to make its projections, but he thinks "maybe the administration is thinking: Let’s not take the [Section] 301 tariffs for granted, [in case] there’s an adverse court ruling by the Court of International Trade."
Every country in the current round of retaliatory tariffs over digital services taxes will have fewer products targeted if negotiations fail to reach a solution, according to detailed lists released for the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Turkey, India and Austria. In all cases, as with an earlier list for France, no duties will be collected as negotiations continue. The announcement, made June 2, allows for up to 180 days before a decision has to be made on whether to hike tariffs on these goods by 25%. "Today’s actions provide time for those negotiations to continue to make progress while maintaining the option of imposing tariffs under Section 301 if warranted in the future," U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a press release.
A recent Economic Policy Institute report that showed the domestic aluminum industry as thriving while the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum were in place demonstrates the continued need for the tariffs, United Steelworkers International said in a news release. "The Section 232 measures are allowing the domestic aluminum industry to regrow and add jobs," union President Tom Conway said in a statement. "This includes new investment not only in aluminum production, but downstream as well. We cannot jeopardize our fragile economic recovery by lifting them prematurely. As we continue to work toward a permanent multilateral solution for global overcapacity, we must maintain and strengthen these measures so that we can rebuild our communities and safeguard our national security. Unless and until we have a comprehensive set of solutions, the 232 national security measures should remain in place."