A bipartisan bill aiming to prevent shortages of critical goods, such as N95 masks, would authorize $1 billion over five years for the Commerce Department, and would establish an Office of Supply Chain Preparedness in the department. The bill, introduced March 18, would establish a National Guard-style program of manufacturing and supply chain experts who could be deployed to the federal government in times of crisis. The bill is sponsored by Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.
The Biden administration said it will appeal a January panel decision at the World Trade Organization that the Commerce Department was wrong to resort to “facts available” calculations of subsidies or cost of production when companies submitted information after deadline and submitted information that was verifiable. The panel also said that the Commerce Department at times was unclear in its requests to firms in South Korean steel and large power transformer antidumping and countervailing duty cases, and that the penalties should be recalculated.
A top European Commission trade official said that it's not reasonable to expect that countries can agree on reforms to dispute settlement that would satisfy the U.S. by November this year. So, Ignacio Garcia Bercero said, countries will need to set a goal of restoring the binding dispute settlement system for the 2023 ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization. “The WTO without binding dispute settlement is not the WTO,” Garcia Bercero said during a presentation online at the Peterson Institute for International Economics on March 19. “The continued escalation of conflicts if we don’t have a functioning dispute settlement system should be something we should all be worried about.”
The Senate and House versions of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act have diverged fairly substantially and the law seems likely to ultimately be closer to the Senate approach, said Ray Bucheger, a lobbyist at FBB Federal Relations. The House bill is more punitive, including a requirement for CBP to name and shame importers whose goods are detained. The Senate bill requires public comment and a public hearing open to importers before establishing a strategy to prevent the importation of goods made with forced labor. Part of that process is expected to produce guidance to importers, and there will still be a rebuttable presumption that goods from China's Xinjiang region were made with forced labor, but if importers implemented the guidance, that would change the burden of proof, according to Bucheger.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, in announcing March 17 subpoenas on Chinese sellers of information and communications technology and services, that these investigations will help the U.S. determine whether the purchases of this equipment or software is damaging to American national security. “The Biden-Harris Administration has been clear that the unrestricted use of untrusted ICTS poses a national security risk. Beijing has engaged in conduct that blunts our technological edge and threatens our alliances,” she said. “The Administration is firmly committed to taking a whole-of-government approach to ensure that untrusted companies cannot misappropriate and misuse data and ensuring that U.S. technology does not support China’s or other actors’ malign activities.”
The chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee said they want to work together on improving enforcement of America's ban on the importation of goods made with forced labor, with Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, saying, “I'm glad this is an issue we both care deeply about.” They spoke at the beginning of a two-hour hearing on fighting forced labor March 18. Crapo said that Congress should pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would create a rebuttable assumption that goods made in Xinjiang were made with forced labor. Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said CBP needs more resources to enforce the ban. Crapo also said CBP regulation must provide thoughtful guidance “so Americans know how to avoid importing these goods.”
Rep. Haley Stevens, co-chair of a new 34-member House Democratic Manufacturing Task Force, said that the last expiration of the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill hurt companies. “A lot of manufacturers lost out and a lot of hard-working manufacturing workers lost out on wages,” she said during a press conference March 18.
A former World Trade Organization appellate body member and a longtime U.S. trade representative's environment advisory committee member agree that an attempt to create a carbon adjustment mechanism by the European Union is likely to violate trade law and support protectionist aims.
The Coalition for a Prosperous America is asking CBP to reject four recommendations from the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee's Forced Labor Working Group (see 2103160027). CPA says that the working group's advice to take a multi-agency approach on enforcing the ban on imports made with forced labor would limit enforcement actions. It says that asking the government to do more to help industry to minimize forced labor in supply chains “has it completely backwards, and shifts responsibility away from culpable parties.”
House Ways and Means Committee chief trade counsel Katherine Tai was confirmed by the Senate as U.S. trade representative on March 17, by a 98-0 vote. Politicians from both parties, trade skeptics and export-focused trade associations all hailed her promotion to the Biden administration Cabinet. She is the first woman of color to be USTR.