The electric vehicle consumer tax incentivesmake it harder for Europe and the U.S. to find agreement on how to measure the carbon intensity in traded steel, and box out steel that was produced through non-economic overcapacity, argued Jennifer Safavian, CEO of Autos Drive America. Her trade group represents foreign-owned automakers with American operations (other than the European company that makes Jeeps and Chryslers).
The U.S. and the EU created a U.S.-EU Task Force "to continue promoting deeper understanding of the [Inflation Reduction Act]’s meaningful progress on lowering costs for families, our shared climate goals, and opportunities and concerns for EU producers."
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will not initiate a Section 301 investigation on Mexican produce exports, it announced Oct. 23, at the deadline for the decision.
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and one of the three Republicans vying to replace him after he retires, asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to "preserve all documents and communications in your custody relating to the Administration’s decision to agree to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS waiver) that was adopted on June 17, 2022."
Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. David Trone, D-Md., both of whom serve on the Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking, complained that widespread waivers for Advanced Electronic Data for mail coming to the U.S. "undermine efforts to identify packages containing fentanyl or other illegal substances and stop them from entering the United States." Expanding AED to mail, not just express shipments, was central to the STOP Act.
The U.S. trade representative should reject the Florida congressional delegation's Section 301 petition regarding Mexican produce imports, argued Iowa's two senators, as well as Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
Although President Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration tariffs on Chinese imports during his campaign, and although his treasury secretary repeatedly said they contribute to inflation and some of them are harmful, trade lobbyists for UPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the tariffs are largely here to stay.
The Alliance for Trade Enforcement, a coalition of trade associations and business groups, says the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity needs effective dispute settlement to fulfill its promise for American exporters.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., recently asked the State Department to ask Honduras to honor guarantees for U.S. investments in Honduran Economic Development and Employment Zones (ZEDEs), which were created under the Dominican Republic-Central America-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA-DR.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who is retiring from Congress at year's end, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that he was disappointed there were no trade items in the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science (CHIPS) Act. "But I’m ready to negotiate a grand bargain on trade in this lame-duck session," he said in a video address Oct. 17. Portman was scheduled to participate in a roundtable of former U.S. trade representatives but was traveling overseas on an official congressional trip.