Bob Zoellick, a U.S. trade representative during the George W. Bush administrations, said that a successful way of completing a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom would be to connect the North American agenda to the U.K. “It gives you more weight,” he said during a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace webinar Feb. 17. “It helps you with North American integration.” He suggested that the FTA could look at carbon emissions, as well as labor, and he believes it could get bipartisan support for extending trade promotion authority, so it could get done.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative says in a Federal Registernotice to be published Feb. 12 that in light of the January revision to the tariff targets, the government and industry agree there is no need for revision this month regarding the Section 301 investigation involving “the enforcement of U.S. rights in the World Trade Organization dispute involving Large Civil Aircraft subsidies provided by certain current or former member States of the European Union.” This exception to the periodic revisions is effective Feb. 8.
The United Kingdom will continue to fall under U.S. tariff rate quotas allocated to goods from the European Union, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a notice Feb. 8. Despite the U.K.’s withdrawal from the EU and the end of the Brexit transition period on Dec. 31, 2020, the U.K. will “continue to be eligible to export under U.S. TRQs allocated to the EU under Additional U.S. Notes 6, 16 to 23, and 25 to Chapter 4” for dairy products, and “Note 5 to Chapter 24” for tobacco products, USTR said. The Foreign Agricultural Service had already announced the U.K. would fall under the EU’s allocations for dairy TRQs in November (see 2011030027).
The Biden administration announced a slew of appointments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative that do not require Senate confirmation, allowing the agency to get its agenda underway as U.S. trade representative nominee Katherine Tai awaits a hearing and a floor vote.
The U.S. has not publicly released all the companies that have applied for an extended period to get their North American-made vehicles into compliance with the tighter rules of origin, but both Canada and Mexico have published the list of 12 companies that have been approved. Since all three countries must approve alternative staging regimes, it follows that these companies' transition plans are cleared by the U.S., as well. The press office of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is in transition with a change in administrations.
Trade advocates and a trade scholar discussed how effective U.S.-Asia sectoral agreements could be, as well as the possible downsides of such agreements, during an Asia Society Policy Institute webinar Jan. 26. The Japan mini-deal was not exactly a sectoral deal because it lowered tariffs on a variety of products across different categories, but the agreement's digital trade plank is one that negotiators could consider as a template for a digital trade accord across more Asian countries.
Robert Lighthizer, immediate past U.S. trade representative, said that during his time in office, every decision was based on “how it brings manufacturing jobs back to the United States,” and, he said, “I think you’re hearing the same kind of language out of the Biden administration, for which I’m grateful.”
President Joe Biden announced his acting agency leadership choices as he waits for the Senate to approve his nominees. María Pagan, deputy general counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, will be acting head until Katherine Tai can be approved as the next U.S. trade representative. Pagán also served as acting USTR during the last transition (see 1701300020).
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released three more reports on Digital Services Taxes, covering those in Austria, Spain and the United Kingdom, and finding that each one discriminates against U.S. firms and burdens U.S. commerce. All the countries designed the taxes so that they were more likely to hit American internet giants and not domestic firms. As it did in earlier reports, USTR makes no recommendations about what the government should do to convince these countries not to apply extraterritorial taxes on companies like Facebook or Google, often on revenue rather than profits.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's 2020 Notorious Markets List focused heavily on websites and apps where you can download or stream pirated movies, shows, music and video games, but did continue to express concern about how easy it is to buy something online based on a picture of a legitimate product and then receive a counterfeit good. The agency said in press release that the report “includes for the first time a section addressing the role of Internet platforms in facilitating the importation of counterfeit and pirated goods.”