Two Senate Finance Committee members pressed commerce secretary nominee Gina Raimondo to study the cost of Section 232 tariffs on downstream companies, but she did not agree to do so in her written replies to their questions. “If confirmed as Secretary, I plan to review any work the Department of Commerce has already done on the impact of the tariffs and will ensure that any review is up to date,” she replied.
The trade war initiated by the U.S. has forced Ford Motor to reevaluate the strategy of sourcing parts that are easily shipped from countries with the cheapest prices, said Hau Thai-Tang, chief operations officer for the company, during a Feb. 3 session of The Economist's World Trade Symposium.
Former U.S. trade representatives and think tank scholars at the Center for Strategic and International Studies say that a revised antidumping and countervailing duty law, which would allow the mere threat of harm, rather than evidence of harm, before the imposition of defensive tariffs, is needed to restore political support for globalization. In addition, they think the U.S. should revive a China-specific safeguard, and encourage other market economies to create their own versions.
Speakers for Navigating the New Normal, a keynote panel at a trade symposium convened by The Economist Feb. 2, discussed whether the political pressure to bring supply chains closer to home will overcome the fact that Vietnam's and China's economies weathered the pandemic better than Europe, with no conclusion, but also talked about what the future of the “special relationship” between the U.S. and the United Kingdom will be in trade.
The U.S. has not publicly released all the companies that have applied for an extended period to get their North American-made vehicles into compliance with the tighter rules of origin, but both Canada and Mexico have published the list of 12 companies that have been approved. Since all three countries must approve alternative staging regimes, it follows that these companies' transition plans are cleared by the U.S., as well. The press office of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is in transition with a change in administrations.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he doesn't know when Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative nominee, might get a hearing in front of the Senate Finance Committee. He told reporters on a press call Feb. 2 that it's likely that Finance will question the Health and Human Services secretary nominee ahead of Tai. He also said he doesn't know how the impeachment trial for Donald Trump could affect the timing. Grassley said he supports President Joe Biden's approach of trying to get Europe, other countries in North America, South Korea and Japan “on the same wavelength with regard to China,” and when he has the opportunity to talk to Tai, he'll be asking about “how long they're going to wait to follow up on phase two” of trade talks with China. He said he doesn't expect the issue of Section 301 exclusions to be on his list of topics to bring up. “I just haven’t had a lot of contact in the last six months with these business interests [with expired exclusions], maybe my staff has,” he said.
President Joe Biden reversed a Trump administration decision to move from 10% tariffs to quotas on aluminum exported from the United Arab Emirates. The proclamation, published Feb. 1, noted that imports of aluminum have “substantially decreased” since the imposition of Section 232 tariffs, and that imports from the UAE fell by 25%. Trade data says that imports of aluminum fell 8% from 2018 to 2019; they fell 10% from 2017 to 2018, the year the tariffs began.
Trade groups representing importers, exporters and companies involved in trade logistics are asking Congress to ask the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to retroactively extend Section 301 exclusions for products whose exclusions expired last year, automatically extend exclusion for pandemic response goods, and reinstate the exclusions process. The 166 groups, which make up the Americans for Free Trade coalition, sent a letter to Congress Jan. 29 with the requests.
The Senate version of a House bill on preventing the importation of goods made with forced labor in China's Xinjiang region has been reintroduced. Although the House bill passed in September 2020 on a 406-3 vote (see 2009220038), it too, will have to be reintroduced, since this is a new Congress.
The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee said he “would really like to see” the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill move quickly, but the time and attention needed to pass COVID-19 relief measures may get in the way. “I don’t know how much oxygen the COVID stimulus bill will suck up in Congress,” Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said Jan. 28.