Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said that now that the tariffs are suspended in the Airbus-Boeing dispute, he's interested in seeing “how do the negotiations go? I said last week that I didn’t object to taking the tariffs off if we can get a solution to this thing that’s been going on for … years.” Grassley, a Senate Finance Committee member who was speaking to reporters on a conference call March 8, said he doesn't think the Senate will vote on Katherine Tai's confirmation for U.S. trade representative this week. “But she’s surely going to be done before Easter break,” he said.
More than two dozen lawmakers urged the Federal Maritime Commission to penalize ocean carriers for declining to carry U.S. exports, saying the practices may violate shipping regulations and should be met with enforcement actions. Ocean carriers are denying bookings to U.S. exporters because the carriers can charge more for imports, 24 senators from both sides of the aisle said in a March 2 letter. In a separate letter, Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash., said the practice is “extremely harmful” to U.S. farmers, especially apple and pear exporters in Washington state.
House Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., told an online audience that over the next four months, the U.S. government is going to set the stage for a trade program that supports environmental goals. Blumenauer, a longtime environmentalist, said he's not concerned that the European Union will dictate the terms of a carbon border adjustment mechanism, since its politicians have a head start. “We’ve had preliminary discussions, we’re going to have more,” he said during a webinar March 5 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on environment and trade.
The Congressional Research Service issued a March 1 report on Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. snapback sanctions imposed under President Donald Trump's administration. The report details the dispute between European signatories of the Iran nuclear deal and the Trump administration over whether the U.S. had the authority to impose snapback sanctions (see 2008210009). It also lays out the impact that snapback sanctions could have on Iran and covers the conditions Iran must meet to remain in compliance with the deal. President Joe Biden's administration said it wants to rejoin the deal or craft a new one, and is willing to meet with Iran, but Iran declined that offer (see 2103010053).
The Airforwarders Association asked the Biden administration to consider “revising several regulatory ordinances that are preventing progress and inhibiting efficiency across a wide range of businesses,” it said March 3. The association, which represents more than 275 cargo companies, did not elaborate on what those regulations are. “Congress must prioritize the passage of a long-term, fully funded transportation and infrastructure bill that reauthorizes the FAST act and allows for substantial federal investment in our nation’s ports, airports, and highways,” the association told the administration. The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, or FAST, passed in 2015 and authorized spending through fiscal year 2020, which ended last September.
The administration needs to open up a fair, timely and transparent exclusions process for Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Kevin Brady said, but he doesn't know what the U.S. trade representative's timetable will be on deciding whether that will happen. He said he hopes it will be very soon. Brady, R-Texas, spoke to reporters on a conference call March 3. “One of the reasons I continue to push this administration to not simply follow through on compliance with the phase one agreement but to go further into phase two” is because once agreements are hammered out, he thinks, it will be time to begin to roll back those tariffs, he said.
The Senate Finance Committee unanimously voted March 3 to forward to the full Senate the nominations of Katherine Tai for U.S. trade representative and Wally Adeyemo for deputy treasury secretary.
Gina Raimondo, the governor of Rhode Island, was confirmed by the Senate to be the next commerce secretary, on an 84-15 vote March 2. She will resign as governor so that she can join President Joe Biden's Cabinet.
The Senate Finance Committee will vote March 3 on the nominations of Katherine Tai as U.S. trade representative and Wally Adeyemo as deputy treasury secretary.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said March 2 that he hasn't yet gone over Katherine Tai's written answers after her hearing but that he expects to vote for her confirmation as U.S. trade representative. Although he didn't work with Tai personally on USMCA, he said his team did so and “had nothing but good things to say about her.” Grassley said he doesn't expect to be able to tell how trade policy is going to unfold from the written answers (see 2103010026). “I think she’ll be approved a long time before we know exactly how” President Joe Biden's “administration is going to handle U.K.” negotiations, if it's going rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership, “what they’re going to do in regard to China, what they’re going to do in sub-Saharan Africa, like [President Donald] Trump was starting with Kenya,” he said during a conference call with reporters. “I think you’re going to get well into the middle of the year before you see any direction.”