The AFL-CIO told China bill conferees that renewing Trade Adjustment Assistance, making changes to trade remedies laws, creating outbound investment screening and removing Chinese exports from de minimis eligibility "should be included in any competitiveness package that purports to challenge China's increasing economic dominance."
The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee told reporters that while any changes to trade remedy laws need to be fully vetted, the argument that Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., made about the solar circumvention case (see 2205110072) resonates for him. Moran asked Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo if the agency needs Congress to expand the criteria that are considered before initiating an investigation. Raimondo has told senators that her hands are tied when they argue that it's absurd to damage the broad solar panel installation ecosystem on behalf of one small company. Currently, the Commerce Department is investigating whether solar panels made in Southeast Asia -- 80% of all imports -- should be subject to higher duties because they contain Chinese inputs. Chinese solar panels have been subject to antidumping and countervailing duties for 10 years; most firms' panels face a combined approximate 40% AD/CVD.
Senators said that officials from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative failed to consult properly before a proposal to make changes to the TRIPS Agreement regarding coronavirus vaccines was released, and that the agency's approach needs to change. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and ranking member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, led the letter, which said: "Administrations of both parties have struggled to comply with the terms Congress has provided to ensure its views are reflected in our trade policy. Accordingly, we request that you take steps to ensure Congress is a full partner in the Administration’s ongoing trade negotiations, regardless of whether the Administration believes any eventual agreement from such negotiations will require formal Congressional approval. To that end, the Office of the United States Trade Representative... must provide Congress with timely, substantive briefings on negotiations and share all U.S. negotiating texts before the Administration commits the United States to a particular negotiating position or outcome."
Legislation from Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., would have the State and Commerce departments report to Congress on how each is working with allies to secure supply chains for semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging, large capacity batteries, pharmaceuticals and active ingredients for those drugs, and critical minerals. The bill, whose text was published May 6, also directs the administration to develop common standards for transparent, trusted and sustainable supply chains and to end reliance on China for these goods. About 80% of critical mineral processing is in China and China is dominant in active ingredients for pills.
Hours before the Senate was due to consider his non-binding instruction to negotiators on the China package to retain language directing the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to reopen a Section 301 exclusion process, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., warned that if USTR didn't open such a process if the language becomes law, he would see that as a misuse of power.
A letter sent by 23 trade associations and about 250 companies asks congressional leaders to renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program at least through Jan. 1, 2027, and to reform the competitive need limitations.
A bipartisan letter led by Ohio's two senators, and signed by 14 other senators across the ideological spectrum, asks Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to reclassify Russia as a non-market economy, which would affect how its goods are treated under antidumping laws. "In its 2002 decision classifying Russia as a market economy, the Department of Commerce noted that economic decentralization was the 'hallmark of market economies,'" the letter said. But, now the senators said, "According to Russian government sources, the state’s share in the Russian economy may be as high as 70 percent. This growth of economic intervention by the Russian government tracks the rapid expansion of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in Russia. According to the International Monetary Fund, Russia has the third most SOEs per capita in the world." They also said that the ruble is not freely convertible, another one of the six criteria for determining if a country is a market economy.
The U.K. has removed tariffs on Ukrainian goods, and the EU is considering doing the same, including suspending antidumping and safeguard measures against Ukranian steel. The U.S. should follow suit, Mary Kate Carter, U.S. Chamber of Commerce coordinator for international policy, wrote May 2. Ukraine exported $1.9 billion in goods to the U.S. last year, and almost half was pig iron, which is already tariff-free. But sunflower oil, another major export from Ukraine to the U.S., does face duties. The U.S. is a small market for Ukraine, representing less than 3% of its exports, she said.
A third of the Democratic caucus in the Senate asked President Joe Biden to expedite an investigation into antidumping and countervailing duty circumvention by solar panel manufacturers in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, if they use Chinese components. The letter, made public on May 2, was led by Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., who made the same arguments to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo when she appeared before the Commerce Committee (see 2204270041).
More than 200 companies, along with local and national trade groups are asking congressional leaders to make sure that the renewal of the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill reimburses importers for tariffs paid on MTB products back to Jan. 1, 2021.