Forty-six House Republicans, led by Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., told the U.S. trade representative in a letter March 10 that he must get the United Kingdom to agree to import chicken with chlorine or other antimicrobial washes.
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.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters that the coronavirus outbreak's impact on China's factories has shown policymakers that the U.S. is too dependent on China for imports. “There ought to be more manufacturing in the United States, but that isn't just on pharmaceuticals, but that could be on anything you're having these supply chains are being interfered with,” he said March 11 in his office at the Capitol.
The House Agriculture subcommittee that covers trade asked farmers to tell them how trade is affecting their businesses. They said they are not following President Donald Trump's advice to buy bigger tractors to fill the orders China has promised to make. Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., chairman of the subcommittee, quoted Trump's comment about tractors in his opening statement, and said he's skeptical about the phase one deal with China, especially given that the coronavirus outbreak is going to affect China's market demand. He also said he'd heard about American poultry stuck in port because there was no one to move it due to quarantines.
In an annual report about China's compliance with its World Trade Organization commitments, the U.S. trade representative repeated complaints from last year's report (see 1902050024) about how U.S. imports are treated by Chinese customs authorities.
After a dinner in Florida attended by President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro, the two issued a joint statement March 7 on how they would like to reach “a bilateral trade package this year.” Because Brazil is in Mercosur, a South American customs union, tariffs are unlikely to be part of such a deal. They also discussed expediting Brazil's participation in the Trusted Trader program, “to streamline commerce between both countries by ensuring the security and safety of imported goods, with a goal of program entry in 2021.”
The annual report on Russia's compliance with World Trade Organization standards echoed much of last year's report (see 1902050029). The U.S. exported $6.7 billion in goods to Russia in 2018, with aircraft, machinery and vehicles as the most common exports. That is nearly 29% less than was exported 10 years ago. It has complied with its tariff commitments, but has numerous non-tariff barriers, the U.S. Trade Representative's report said.
The last American to serve on the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body, Tom Graham, told the Georgetown Law International Trade Update conference that the body “is not coming back any time soon.” Graham, who largely agrees with the U.S. critique of Appellate Body overreach, added, “The new I have come to ... is that it's better this way.” Graham was the most prominent, but far from the only speaker at the March 5-6 conference to say that neither the Europeans nor the Americans are ready to have a meeting of the minds on how to reform the appellate function of the rules-based trading order.
Three House members introduced a bill March 5 that would grant Trade Adjustment Assistance to workers who lost their jobs at firms that had to cut back due to retaliatory tariffs on their exports. The bill was introduced by Reps. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Jim Cooper, D-Tenn. Traditionally, TAA has been for people who lost their jobs because the company moved their work out of the country, or because the company had to cut staff because it could not compete with imports. It provides extended unemployment insurance and pays for tuition for up to two years so workers can retrain for a different field. This bill is similar to a Democrat-introduced bill in July 2018 (see 1807180019) that did not get a vote in the House; Schneider, Sensenbrenner and Cooper also introduced a version of the bill in the summer of 2018.
A bill that calls on the administration to begin negotiations on a U.S.-Taiwan free trade agreement passed the House of Representatives unanimously March 4. While the bill -- the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) Act -- already passed the Senate, the Senate needs to vote again to send it to the president's desk because the bill language was not identical between the two chambers. “It is the sense of Congress that the United States should engage in bilateral trade negotiations with Taiwan, with the goal of entering into a free trade agreement that is of mutual economic benefit and that protects United States workers and benefits United States exporters,” the bill says.
The United Kingdom government emphasized that its National Health Service will not pay more for drugs as a result of a U.S.-United Kingdom free trade deal, and that Britain “will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.” The latter seems to be a reference to sanitary standards that frustrate U.S. exporters, such as a ban on anti-bacterial washes of chicken. The government issued its negotiating objectives and an analysis of the economic benefit to the U.K. of a free trade deal in the March 2 document.