The U.S. Chamber of Commerce laid out its priorities for trade in 2020, and most of them were well-known in 2019: getting USMCA passed; ending steel and aluminum tariffs; negotiating comprehensive trade agreements with Japan, the European Union and the United Kingdom. But lesser-known priorities are: ensuring that new regulations on foreign ownership of American firms are focused on national security issues, and arguing for a balanced approach in the regulations from the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 that protect “national security without unduly hindering legitimate commerce.” The Chamber also said Jan. 9 that it wants Congress to approve “permanent normal trade relations with Kazakhstan and its graduation from the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974.”
After the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that six other committees besides Finance need to consider the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, five of those committees have scheduled hearings or meetings to deal with the implementing bill next week. The Budget and the Environment committees will take it up Jan. 14; the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and the Commerce committees will take it up Jan. 15; and the Foreign Relations Committee will take it up Jan. 16. If the Appropriations Committee were to also have a hearing next week, a vote could come the following week, but Appropriations has not scheduled a hearing.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said Republicans on the committee will be more active in 2020 in backing the administration's call for significant World Trade Organization reforms. When asked by International Trade Today if he thinks the appellate body will be revived this year, he said he didn't know. Brady, who was speaking to reporters Jan. 8, said, “There's got to be some serious changes. That's crucial to the credibility of the WTO for the long term. This has been a long-standing concern, not just in the U.S. Because of that appellate body/dispute resolution system is so long, at times arbitrary, and oftentimes not enforced, it really undermines the rules-based trading system -- which I know we all want.”
The panel deciding which French products should face Section 301 tariffs was intrigued by a point made by the Cheese Importers Association of America -- who could pay more on 21 Harmonized Tariff Schedule headings if all the proposed tariffs are included.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he's been told it's going to take three or four days for six other Senate committees to clear the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement so that it can go to the floor for a vote. Whether it can come up the week of Jan. 21 will depend on whether the articles of impeachment have arrived by then, he noted.
The Senate Finance Committee has recommended the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement come up for a vote in the Senate as a whole, voting 25-3 Jan. 7 to advance the deal. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters that the USMCA implementing bill also has to get buy-in from the Budget, Environment and Commerce committees, though they don't have to hold mark-up hearings, as the Finance Committee did. He predicted that if the articles of impeachment aren't sent over to the Senate yet, “by next week, for sure,” there would be a floor vote, but if the articles arrive, he said, it could be the end of January before a vote.
For five months in 2018, it looked like Chinese injection molds were going to cost 25 percent more because of Section 301 tariffs, and the import volume from China in 2018 fell nearly 12 percent, to $385 million. Overall imports of injection molds -- which were valued at $1.8 billion in 2018 -- rose 5 percent that year.
Three dozen witnesses are scheduled to testify Jan. 7 on the appropriateness of levying tariffs on French handbags, makeup, champagne, enamel cookware, cheese, butter and yogurt in retaliation for a proposed digital services tax -- and some of the organizations that represent the companies that would be most affected by the tax are not asking for tariffs. In fact, only the National Milk Producers Federation, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Baker McKenzie say that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative should use tariffs to pressure France to abandon a DST.
President Donald Trump tweeted that he will sign “our very large and comprehensive Phase One Trade Deal with China on January 15” at the White House. "High level representatives of China will be present" and Trump is planning to go to Beijing "at a later date" to begin talks around Phase Two, he said. An administration official previously said the signing would be done between the U.S. trade representative and China's vice premier, and would happen in the first week of January (see 1912130035).
Japanese beef exporters will be able to send more beef to the U.S. at a lower tariff rate in 2020, as Japan's tariff-rate quota will be part of the total TRQ allocation, according to a White House proclamation released Dec. 27. However, Japan is a trivial source of imported beef in America; the top six exporters -- Canada, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua and Brazil -- account for 95 percent of imports.