Some Senate Finance Committee Members Say USMCA de Minimis Provisions Up to House to Resolve
Although 10 of the 27 members of the Senate Finance Committee asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to leave de minimis where it is -- including the chairman and ranking member -- the USTR has remained non-committal on whether the implementing bill will change U.S. law for the NAFTA region. As Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., put it in a brief hallway interview at the Capitol before the Senate recessed on Aug. 2, "He hasn’t said one way or the other on that."
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Because the implementing bill has to start in the House Ways and Means Committee, Lankford suggested that the House of Representatives might make de minimis part of its negotiation over the new NAFTA. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told International Trade Today, “I think the Speaker has the keys to that,” and said he doesn’t know what her view is on de minimis. Lankford said he doesn't have a view on whether the level should stay at $800 or be lowered to something closer to Mexico's and Canada's levels, which will rise to about $115 if all three countries ratify the new NAFTA, now known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., was one of seven members of the committee who asked Lighthizer to promise not to lower de minimis, in written submissions after the USTR's testimony to the committee in June (see 1907300048). In a brief hallway interview, Scott said he had not talked to Lighthizer about it.
Other senators on the Finance Committee seemed to think they, too, could have leverage to retain the $800 de minimis level. When Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., was asked if the committee could convince USTR to preserve the current level, he replied, “That’s a good question, and I think there’ll be some more work to do on that.”
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., was the most forceful advocate against lowering de minimis for Mexican and Canadian imports out of a half-dozen committee members recently interviewed. "I hope we can convince [Lighthizer] to the contrary on that," he said. Cardin said that if de minimis were lowered for North American imports, "That would be very harmful to small companies.”
Because of fast-track, committees cannot make amendments to the implementing bill that comes over from the administration. But they do hold mock markups of a draft implementing bill, and the administration generally considers that input before sending over a final bill.
Cardin said the Finance Committee may be able to bar the administration from lowering de minimis through the mock markup, and added, "We’ll look for ways that we can. I’ve raised it a couple of times. It’s one of the important issues. We have to have better clarification.”