Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican who represents a state with steel mills and many steel-consuming factories, said he's meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Oct. 10 to ask him what his plan is to lift the steel and aluminum tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada. Portman, who is a former USTR himself, said in an Oct. 10 interview before the meeting that "it seems to me that'd be something important to resolve."
When the head of the Canada Institute asked Canadian negotiators in the NAFTA talks what they were most proud of, they said modernization at the border. "The customs facilitation, the regulatory [change] makes a big difference," said Laura Dawson, director of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute. "Origin certificates used to have to be faxed to the border. The fact that they're going to use iPads is a huge win."
Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull offered a full-throated defense of free trade in a speech to a Washington think tank. "There is no question that free trade and open markets means more jobs," Turnbull said Oct. 4 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said his consistent rejection of protectionism seemed out of step with the global trend after the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump. But he spoke with pride of how Australia, New Zealand and Japan led the charge to save the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the U.S. withdrawal. Even without the U.S., the remaining 11 countries account for 15 percent of global trade volumes, he said.
Previous presidents gave lip service to curbing China's unfair trade practices, but never followed through, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said during a Q&A at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. "And President Trump is following through. Don't blame Trump, blame the system he inherited." Kudlow, who called Trump a disrupter, acknowledged that he is "more of a doctrinaire free trader" than his boss. But, he said, the China problem can't be left alone. "China has played fast and loose with the rules," Kudlow said Oct. 4. "The World Trade Organization needs reforms to enforce those rules. China is not a developing country anymore."
Vice President Mike Pence said American voters will not be swayed by Chinese propaganda and tariffs aimed at rural Republican constituencies, and that the administration will keep escalating tariffs on China until abuses end. "Our message to China's rulers is this president will not back down," Pence said Oct. 4 at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. "We'll continue to take action against Beijing until the theft of American intellectual property ends once and for all. And we will continue to stand strong until Beijing stops the predatory practice of forced technology transfer."
Witnesses from the United States Council for International Business, the Aluminum Association and the International Intellectual Property Alliance say that China is not living up to its World Trade Organization commitments on many fronts, even as there are some signs of movement away from practices that damage foreign competitors.
A bill that would require advance data from all international mail by 2020 -- designed to help CBP interdict small-scale fentanyl and carfentanil shipments, particularly from China -- is headed to the president's desk after the Senate voted 98-1 on Oct. 3 to approve the conference report of a package of bills that attacked the opioid epidemic from many angles.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer fired back at critics who say the auto rules of origin will make North American cars less competitive for export beyond the NAFTA countries and that the labor-friendly changes to the pact will not be enough to garner substantial Democratic votes. Lighthizer, who was speaking on Laura Ingraham's political talk radio show on Oct. 2, said: "The people who say we shouldn't have renegotiated this thing are just engaging in self-deception. We were witnessing literally the loss of our automobile industry, parts and companies to Mexico and other places."
Closing a trade deal with Canada and Mexico with the threat of tariffs on the auto sector has emboldened President Donald Trump for his battle with China, said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "I think the most interesting thing that Donald Trump said in his press conference yesterday is that he made it very clear that he sees the tariffs he put in place as negotiating leverage," Alden said on a conference call with reporters Oct. 2.
The scaling back of the investor-state dispute system, a wage component to rules of origin and a more enforceable labor and environmental standard all address Democrats' complaints that free trade erodes American workers' wages and jobs and privileges corporations over citizens, said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "The politics of this are sort of fascinating here," he said of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.