Saying tariffs on Canadian lumber are adding to home building costs, Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and John Thune, R-S.D., asked Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to expedite the final determination on Canadian softwood lumber trade remedies.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said USMCA is crucial to the country's economic recovery from the pandemic "because it was developed with the future in mind."
As China has used economic coercion to punish countries such as Lithuania and Australia, senators are suggesting that the president could lower tariffs or quotas on countries' exports to the U.S. to ease the pain. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., introduced a bill that would give the president the authority to lower tariffs or modify quotas on imports from a country that is facing economic coercion to make up for lost exports, and to waive some policy requirements to facilitate export financing. Congress would have to be consulted on whether there is economic coercion and how to support the target of that coercion. The support would sunset after two years.
The high price of fertilizers is a bigger emergency than the cost of solar panels, argued Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and six other Republican senators and U.S. Representative Tracey Mann, R-Kan., and 23 other Republican House members in a letter asking President Joe Biden to intervene in antidumping and countervailing duty cases on phosphate fertilizer from Morocco and a preliminary decision on a trade remedy case on urea ammonium nitrate fertilizer from Trinidad and Tobago.
House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and five other Democratic members of the House and two Democratic senators, have introduced a bill that would move food regulation currently in handled by FDA to a new agency in the Health and Human Services Department.
Seven House Democrats have asked the Biden administration why three Chinese solar panel manufacturers were not put on the entity list under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, as they say consulting group Horizon Advisory has reported that the three either have ties to forced labor or have signs of using forced labor.
E-Merchants Trade Council sent a letter to congressional leaders arguing that carving China out of de minimis eligibility, which is part of the House version of the China bill, would cost companies $499 billion in additional duties, taxes and fees. The trade group is advocating for trade rules that simplify cross-border shipments, CEO Marianne Rowden said.
Five Republican senators, only one of whom voted for the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), are asking that Senate conferees drop the directive to reopen a Section 301 exclusion process, and add a number of trade provisions only found in the House China package. Some House proposals that Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Ala., Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Florida's two senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, both Republicans, want to include:
Emissions-intensive, trade-exposed goods such as cement, paper, glass, steel and chemicals are likely to be those facing carbon border adjustment taxes, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report about both the possibility of the taxes going into effect in Canada and the EU and what Congress would need to consider if it wanted to pass its own version.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who voted for the Senate's China package last year, publicly threw a wrench into the already difficult negotiations to hash out a compromise between the House and Senate approaches to investing in America and competing with China.