Importers are hoping that the guidance from the federal government on how to comply with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act will help identify Chinese firms that are outside of Xinjiang but employ Uyghur or other minority Muslim workers through China's "poverty alleviation" programs. Goods from those factories will be presumed to be made with forced labor, but customs advisers from KPMG said identifying that nexus to forced labor in your supply chain is even more challenging than seeing if you have Xinjiang inputs several tiers down in your supply chain.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and three Republican senators introduced the China Trade Cheating Restitution Act to require CBP to pay interest on distributions of antidumping duties and countervailing duties to injured parties under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, which applies to entries made before Sept. 30, 2007. For imports that entered since FY 2008 began, injured parties have not been allowed to receive money collected on antidumping or countervailing duties. The Senate bill, introduced March 30, is a companion to one introduced in December in the House (see 2112140032).
The Ocean Shipping Reform Act, which aims to end unreasonable detention and demurrage and make ocean carriers accept more exports, passed the Senate by a voice vote on March 31.
Senators on the committee that oversees trade pressed U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai repeatedly on why the administration isn't engaged in negotiations with other countries to get them to lower their tariffs, so that U.S. exporters, particularly agricultural producers, can gain more market share. Both Democrats and Republicans questioned the decision to pursue the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework as something other than a traditional free trade agreement,
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai endorsed the Level the Playing Act during a four-hour hearing in front of the House Ways and Means Committee after one of its House sponsors noted the House and the Senate are about to go to conference, and the proposal to rewrite antidumping duty and countervailing duty laws is going to be on the table.
Sen. John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who serves as his party's top vote-counter, told reporters at the Capitol that a bill to remove permanent normal trade relations status from Russia is stalled in the Senate over one Republican's disagreement on the Magnitsky Act renewal. He said that Democrats are negotiating with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on the language he wants regarding the Magnitsky Act. "They're still trying to negotiate, and hopefully they'll be able to find a path forward, but as of right now, it's hung up, and I don't see that busting loose this week, and next week is the Supreme Court [nomination vote], so it doesn't look like anything's likely to happen on that until after the Easter break."
Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said that when Republicans meet privately with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai ahead of her testimony March 30, they will argue that the Section 301 exclusions announced last week (see 2203230070) were far too limited.
As CBP works to implement the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, its champion, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told International Trade Today he's concerned that CBP will not strictly enforce the law, which says that any good with any input from China's Xinjiang region is assumed to contain forced labor.
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., along with three Republican co-sponsors, introduced a bill that would ban the import of Venezuelan oil. South Florida has a large Venezuelan exile population, and there had been recent press reports that the U.S. might import oil from Venezuela as it cut off oil imports from Russia.
A handful of House members, led by Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., introduced legislation to ban the import of uranium from Russia, as a response to the invasion of Ukraine. The bill follows the introduction of a similar ban from the Senate earlier in March (see 2203170061).