Brady Says MTB, GSP Renewal Unlikely Before Infrastructure Bill Passage
The Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill are unlikely to get a vote in the House for months, as an infrastructure bill and the taxes to pay for those projects is shaped by committees, a top lawmaker said during a press call April 1. The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee said that while “all the oxygen is being sucked up” by the infrastructure bill, “my sense of Chairman [Richard] Neal is that he, too, believes they are crucial to America's economic leadership and wants to find consensus on how to end the delay on both of the programs.”
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Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who was responding to a question from International Trade Today, said, “I think there is a strong appetite among House Democrats and Republicans to renew both the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill and Generalized System of Preferences.” He reiterated that Republicans are open to reasonable changes to GSP program eligibility requirements.
Brady also expressed concern that the Biden administration will let fast track authority, also known as Trade Promotion Authority, lapse this summer. “Every president needs authority to negotiate trade agreements,” he said. If the president does not press for TPA renewal, “does that signal that new trade agreements are a lower priority for this White House? It sure looks like that. And I think that would be a mistake.”
Brady said Ways and Means Republicans are seeking a meeting with new U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to tell her about their interest in opening export markets, and their hopes she will restart negotiations with the United Kingdom, which he called a “trade opportunity right in front of us.”