The American Apparel and Footwear Association said it wants Congress to pass a bill that would refund tariffs paid for goods eligible for the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program that entered in 2021 and through the end of July this year, though without renewing the program..
China dominates in rare-earths magnet production, which is a threat to U.S. national security, the Commerce Department concluded, but the president will not be authorizing tariffs to bolster a nascent domestic rare-earths magnet industry.
When asked if decoupling renewal of two tariff-lifting programs from a reauthorization of Trade Adjustment Assistance is a non-starter, House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., told International Trade Today, "Well, I'd certainly want to discuss it with [Republicans] ... they all have to be done in some shape or form."
House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who schedules when legislation gets a vote in that chamber, said no one has brought up the Customs Business Fairness Act to him, and while he is aware it was part of a 2021 COVID-19 relief package, he hasn't heard anything about it lately.
The Part 111 broker regulations in the works for five years are about to be released (see 2209140051) and National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America Customs Committee Chair Mary Jo Muoio that said there are aspects of the rules that the group welcomes, and others that it dreads.
After 20 years of pushing, customs brokers got a carve-out to bankruptcy law so that the money importers give them to send to CBP to pay tariffs are not subject to clawback after a bankruptcy filing. The clawback provisions are there so that company insiders or other parties don't get favorable payments just before a filing. But that carve-out expired at the end of last year, and now brokers are trying to get it back. National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America members are making the Customs Business Fairness Act their No. 1 ask during lobbying on the Hill on Sept. 19.
Countries whose industries have been damaged by Chinese oversubsidization and overcapacity have tried to discourage subsidies in China, with results that have "been mixed at best," said Anna Ashton, the Eurasia Group's director of China corporate affairs and U.S.-China relations. She said allowing China to join the World Trade Organization, more than 20 years ago, was part of this system of carrots and sticks to effect changes in China.
The only outstanding USMCA rapid response labor complaint, against Manufacturas VU, a Michigan-headquartered supplier of interior automotive trims, has been settled, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., said a recent Labor Department report about Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) labor compliance in the Dominican Republican's sugar industry confirmed their conclusions when they visited sugar cane farms in July, that the workers live in substandard conditions and that there is a "culture of fear" in the industry.
During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing focused on expanding trade with Taiwan, ranking member Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chose to put in a word for trade preference programs that expired at the end of 2020. "It was a mistake to allow two crucial job-creating programs, GSP and MTB, to have expired. They have now lapsed for almost two years," Brady said, referring to the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill. "Inaction on these key programs is causing American companies and their workers to lose out to foreign competitors, and additional delay will only increase this impact."