Mara Lee

A bill that would create a Commerce Department task force focused on potential self-initiated antidumping and countervailing duty investigations was to be introduced Feb. 14, Senators Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., announced. The International Trade Administration task force would investigate imports that could be subject to AD/CV duties and refer abuses for formal investigation. The bill instructs the task force to place its emphasis on small and medium domestic producers that are being undercut by unfair imports.

President Donald Trump told 15 congressional Republicans and four Democrats visiting the White House Feb. 13 that he's considering quotas or tariffs to protect domestic steel and aluminum. Producers have been decimated by dumping from China and other countries, he said. He said he'd discussed "in great detail" on the campaign trail how U.S. steel and aluminum industries have been taken advantage of by other countries.

Ripping up NAFTA was one of President Donald Trump's biggest applause lines at his campaign rallies, and it's hard to see him walking away from that, given its importance "for the people he feeds off," said Grant Aldonas, a Commerce Department undersecretary for international trade during the George W. Bush administration, speaking Feb. 13 at the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones conference. He encouraged attendees to lobby Congress to modernize and preserve NAFTA, but he noted that their arguments have to take into account the power of populism and the uncertain political environment as midterm elections approach. "You can see that [uncertainty] in retirements, especially on the Republican side," he said. "People are dealing with politics they don't recognize."

The Trump administration's budget request for fiscal year 2019 keeps funding for the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration largely flat. Still, that funding "would allow ITA to conduct robust investigations into al­leged trade violations, aggressively advocate for U.S. businesses facing tariff and non-tariff barriers abroad, and increase the capacity to closely review proposed foreign investments in U.S. businesses." The request, released Feb. 12, said "the President insisted on a simple, but forgotten principle -- America First," and said that trade enforcement is a high-priority, mission-critical program.

President Donald Trump said during a Feb. 12 infrastructure event that a "reciprocal tax" may be coming because our allies are not allies on trade. "We cannot continue to be taken advantage of by other countries. We cannot continue to let people come into our country and rob us blind and charge us tremendous tariffs and taxes, and we charge them nothing. We cannot allow that to happen," he said, repeating for emphasis: "We cannot allow it to happen."

The Generalized System of Preferences, which expired at the end of last year, had its first move toward renewal Feb. 8, as the chairman and ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee introduced a bill that would extend the program for three years, the committee said in a press release. "When enacted, the bill introduced today will extend the program through December 31, 2020, and retroactively extend benefits to covered imports that have been made since the program lapsed," the release said.

China has asked for consultations under World Trade Organization rules to discuss safeguard tariffs the United States is levying against washing machines and solar panels. The request, filed at the WTO on Feb. 6, is the first step in a dispute process on whether the tariffs violate international trade law. "We believe the measures taken by the United States are not consistent with its obligations," China wrote in its requests.

CBP has consistently failed to hire mandated levels of trade-related staff, and bills recently introduced in the House and Senate aim to remedy the problem. Both bills only have Democratic sponsors. The bills propose hiring 500 new CBP officers and 100 new agricultural officers each year until the staffing shortage is resolved. The Senate bill says it would cost $69.5 million in each fiscal year from 2018 to 2024. The House version was released Feb. 6. The Government Accountability Office wrote last year that import specialists, customs auditors, national import specialists and drawback specialists have been below the mandated levels in at least three years. More broadly, the agency should have at least 8,658 CBP officers, the report said, and it had 6,889 in October 2014, the report said (See 1706130015). "Staffing shortfalls can impact CBP's ability to enforce trade effectively, for example, by leading to reduced compliance audits and decreased cargo inspections, according to CBP officials," the report said. "CBP cited several challenges to filling staffing gaps, including that hiring for trade positions is not an agency-wide priority."

A bill that would exempt sea urchin and sea cucumber exports from Fish and Wildlife Service export and import inspections passed the House of Representatives Feb. 5 by unanimous consent. Maine's delegation has pushed for legislation to overturn FWS rulemaking from 2008. A companion bill to H.R. 2504 was introduced by both Maine senators in 2017. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, says that about $25 million in sea urchin roe is exported from Maine annually, and most of it is sent to Japan. She said the product only has a shelf life of one week, and the inspection regime "can lead to a loss of product and money." The chief of law enforcement for FWS, William Woody, told Congress in 2016, when it was considering the same action, that typically shipments are cleared on the same business day. The agency does ask exporters to give 48 hours' notice before arrival at the port, he said. "Sustainable regulated harvest is essential to preserve the economic interests of those involved in the industry," Woody testified then, to collect data that can fight overfishing and declining stocks.

Republicans and Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee -- including the chairman -- asked Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for reassurance that the administration will preserve trade agreements that are crucial to farm sales, during a Feb. 6 hearing on the rural economy. Perdue said he expects Mexico, Canada and the U.S. to reach an agreement on a modernized NAFTA by the end of the year, though not until after Mexico's presidential election. "I’m more hopeful than I have been," he told Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., who had noted Mexico buys 30 percent of his state's milk. Perdue said NAFTA has been positive for agriculture generally; all trade-related questions from the committee during the hearing were pro-free trade.