Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., followed up on a letter asking for flexibility on electric vehicle tax credits with a bill that would phase in the sourcing and manufacturing requirements linked to credits.
A bill that temporarily lifts a 13.6% tariff plus $1.035/kg tariff on base powder that's an input to baby formula passed both the House and Senate on Sept. 29, just three days after it was introduced in the House by Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and the subcommittee's top Republican, Adrian Smith, R-Neb., along with others (see 2209260058). It passed the House with a voice vote and passed the Senate unanimously.
Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., in a tight race for re-election, asked the Treasury Department to write regulations for the electric vehicle tax credits that make more vehicles eligible for the credits than the text of the Inflation Reduction Act delineates.
The Senate Agriculture Committee this week advanced the nomination of Alexis Taylor, President Joe Biden's nominee to be USDA’s undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs, to the full Senate (see 2205160011). During her nomination hearing, Taylor said she expects U.S. agricultural traders to have “huge opportunities” in the Indo-Pacific. She said they should prepare for expanded market access (see 2209230028).
A bipartisan group of legislators introduced a bill Sept. 26 that would temporarily lift tariffs on imports of “base powder,” a key component of baby formula. The Bulk Infant Formula to Retail Shelves Act would “boost domestic baby formula production and get more product on shelves amid the continued shortage across the United States,” a news release said. The bill would come on top of tariffs on infant formula temporarily eliminated by the Formula Act in July (see 2207210041). The current tariff on base powder is 13.6% + $1.035/kg, according to a fact sheet on the new bill.
The American Apparel and Footwear Association said it wants Congress to pass a bill that would refund tariffs paid for goods eligible for the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program that entered in 2021 and through the end of July this year, though without renewing the program..
When asked if decoupling renewal of two tariff-lifting programs from a reauthorization of Trade Adjustment Assistance is a non-starter, House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., told International Trade Today, "Well, I'd certainly want to discuss it with [Republicans] ... they all have to be done in some shape or form."
Apple should “rethink” any decision to purchase chips from China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote in a Sept. 14 letter to the U.S. technology company. Cotton said Apple and “far too many” other American businesses “already rely on China for manufacturing and supplies. Adding another Chinese company to Apple’s supply chain, particularly one with close ties” to the Chinese government and military, “compounds these risks.”
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., said a recent Labor Department report about Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) labor compliance in the Dominican Republican's sugar industry confirmed their conclusions when they visited sugar cane farms in July, that the workers live in substandard conditions and that there is a "culture of fear" in the industry.
A trade group that represents firms that import Mexican produce fired back at a Florida delegation that had asked the U.S. trade representative to initiate an investigation against Mexican growers under Section 301 (see 2209090052).