Dan Ikenson, who spent decades in trade policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said he defended China's behavior for years after it joined the World Trade Organization. "I was in favor of welcoming China into the trading system," he said. But now, Ikenson said during a June 9 webinar hosted by the R Street Institute, he has come to see that China's last 15 years of state-directed capitalism produced enormous externalities. He said some of those externalities include the rise of populism, the political rejection of free trade, and even, in part, the presidency of Donald Trump.
Section 301 (too broad)
The China package once known as the Endless Frontier Act passed the Senate with 68 votes. The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act includes a trade amendment that authorizes a new Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, restarts applications for Section 301 tariff exclusions, adds an inspector general to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, renews the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program for more than five years and directs the CBP to increase inspections of imports with the aim of finding counterfeits. The bill passed the evening of June 8.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of May 24 - June 6.
In the June 9 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 55, No. 22), CBP published a proposal to revoke and modify rulings on portable food allergen detection device, single-use pods and a starter kit.
The administration issued a lengthy report after a 100-day review of supply chain vulnerabilities that recommends a lot of reshoring of manufacturing, in semiconductors, critical minerals and pharmaceutical ingredients, but also suggests a "trade strike force" to be deployed against unfair foreign trade practices that have hurt domestic companies that contribute to critical supply chains.
According to the White House budget, importers are expected to pay $85 billion in tariffs in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. But the administration projects that duties collections will fall to $57 billion in fiscal year 2022, and to $45 billion in FY23. Alvaro Ferreira, a consultant to Sandler Travis law firm and an economist by training, said he doesn't know what assumptions the Office of Management and Budget used to make its projections, but he thinks "maybe the administration is thinking: Let’s not take the [Section] 301 tariffs for granted, [in case] there’s an adverse court ruling by the Court of International Trade."
A Japanese and a Korean economist said that trade tensions between their two countries are no longer really disrupting Korea's semiconductor industry, though they are still increasing costs for some of the Japanese exporters.
The immediate past U.S. trade representative criticized an amendment attached to a China package which would renew the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, and restart the exclusions for Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports. The amendment, which got more than 90 votes in the Senate, also renews the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, but Robert Lighthizer was silent on that aspect of the bill.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated June 4. The following headquarters rulings were modified recently, according to CBP:
After the House Ways and Means Committee chairman expressed optimism that global tax negotiations would solve the problem of digital services taxes around the world, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the ranking Republican on the committee, said that President Joe Biden's strategy is a lose-lose for America.