The Alliance for American Manufacturing told the administration that it's "absurd" to blame Section 301 tariffs for inflation, given they started years before inflation began to rise. "U.S. consumers would see little to no benefit from tariff roll backs and any erosion of tariffs will benefit China’s Communist Party and China’s manufacturing sector, which would make up the difference by increasing its prices," the group wrote. It said that all tariffs should remain. "AAM strongly supports allowing USTR to continue its fact-based exclusion process without congressional mandates or any other political interference that predetermines an outcome. While an accessible and transparent exclusion process is essential for trade enforcement actions, unwarranted tariff relief may very well signal the demise of a U.S. company that is seeking to establish a market foothold or one that has reinvented itself to fill gaps in our domestic supply chains," it wrote.
A new bill directs the administration to open a Section 301 investigation "to determine whether acts, policies, and practices of the Government of the People's Republic of China related to technology transfer, intellectual property, or innovation with respect to rare earth metal mining, separation, metallization, alloying, or magnet manufacturing, or related processes, are acts, policies, and practices" are damaging enough to the U.S. economy that they necessitate "trade enforcement actions to deter the Government of the People's Republic of China from further interference in the rare earth metals market."
The Ocean Shipping Reform Act, which would punish carriers who reject exports from West Coast ports if the Federal Maritime Commission deems those decisions as unreasonable, was signed into law June 16. The FMC is directed to begin a rulemaking on the matter. The law also puts the burden of proof on the reasonableness of demurrage and detention fees on ocean carriers, rather than the parties who were charged the fees.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., told an audience at the American Association of Exporters and Importers conference June 15 that his discussion draft of a Customs modernization bill elicited some consternation, but that it was shared because he was trying to figure out "how do we get stakeholders in a good place so that we can have a customs modernization package?"
A new report from Sheffield Hallam University researchers alleges that about 25% of flooring sold in the U.S. includes PVC, a type of plastic, made in China, and that "the lion's share" of the resins come from China's Xinjiang Uyghur region.
The June 13 passing of bill that aims to force shipping companies to accept U.S. exports on the return trip to Asia, and which further codifies Federal Maritime Commission's attempts to police detention and demurrage charges, was hailed by politicians as an inflation solution and greeted with caution by industry players.
While several key players portrayed negotiations as active on the trade title, House Ways and Means ranking member Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said: "We've had virtually no discussions on the trade provisions in the China conference. We're eager to get talking about it. The trade provisions are not going to be easy. I do think there's common ground, but the clock's ticking and we have a lot of work to do, and the sooner we get to it, the better."
A top official in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said that opposition to extending a moratorium on tariffs on sales of intangible goods has surfaced before, but that the e-commerce moratorium has been renewed at every World Trade Organization ministerial conference since 1998. "There are a few countries, despite benefiting from e-commerce and digital trade, who continue to resist an extension of the moratorium," she said, but most countries, including in the developing world, see the tariff-free status as important.
A German think tank specialist in semiconductors' value chain vulnerabilities told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission he's concerned that the policy focus on bringing more production back to either the EU or the U.S. won't achieve its aims because policymakers aren't sure what those aims are.
President Joe Biden, speaking at the Port of Los Angeles, praised the collaborative work of port officials and workers and the government to break through logjams, and partly blamed foreign-owned shipping companies for rising prices.