House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., is questioning why Chinese intellectual property and components used in U.S. assembly plants for electric vehicle batteries and solar panels should be eligible for tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Reps. Mike Bost, R-Ill., and Terri Sewell, D-Ala., are co-sponsoring Fighting Trade Cheats Act, a companion to a bill introduced in the Senate in March (see 2303160067).
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., recently authored an opinion piece in The Washington Times calling for a "foreign pollution fee" to combat Chinese emissions. The fee would target imports, "like Chinese steel and chemicals, produced with lower environmental standards than cleaner American production," he said.
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., has reintroduced a bill that would ban the importation of fresh citrus from China, beginning 90 days after passage. Text of the U.S. Citrus Protection Act was published April 18. It has no co-sponsors.
A staff report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission says that Congress should consider that "current customs and tariff levels disproportionately benefit Chinese e-commerce firms," and that packages sent to U.S. consumers "are frequently not inspected. Those that are inspected are often subject to rudimentary visual checks without the technology or screening to trace fabric origin and other violations."
The chair and co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, along with the lead sponsors of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, told Homeland Security Undersecretary Robert Silvers that they're concerned about the implementation of UFLPA, and that they intend to call Silvers to testify at a hearing in the near future, along with "a panel of experts on trade, labor trafficking, and supply chain mapping."
The Congressional Research Service described how the Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis system and the newer Aluminum Import Monitoring system have functioned in recent years. The report, published last week, noted that SIMA was updated in 2020 so that importers have to disclose where a semi-finished product or a finished steel product was melted and poured.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he sent a second round of letters to automakers and a round of letters to tier 1 suppliers about their ties to Xinjiang (see 2303280069) because he was disappointed by the tenor of the responses to his first round of letters in December.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's leaders have introduced a bill to add Ecuador to the list of beneficiaries of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act, reducing tariffs on nearly 50% of Ecuador's exports to the U.S.