One Democrat and one Republican from each chamber sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, asking the administration to reexamine the decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017, a decision they called “misguided and short-sighted.” The May 5 letter, led by Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, a close ally to President Joe Biden, also acknowledged that “there are significant political obstacles to negotiating an agreement to rejoin the TPP in its current form.” But Carper, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said there should be an effort to determine the best course for engagement with the countries that continued on without the U.S. to see how they could build on recent trade agreements.
The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee said he doesn't have a good sense of when the renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program or the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill could come up for a vote in the House, where the bills must originate. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, told International Trade Today during a May 6 press call that Senate Finance Committee ranking member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., are engaging about both programs, in the context of a China bill that committee is working on. “I think any discussion at this point is helpful,” he said. Brady said he thinks the two bills could move sooner if they were made a priority in the House, since they have both stood on their own in the past, and have passed under suspension rules or unanimous consent, which means they don't take up significant time on the legislative calendar.
CBP saw a record 38 million Type 86 entries in April, said Jim Swanson, CBP director-cargo and conveyance security and controls, who was speaking virtually to the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference on May 5. That's still not capturing the full scope of small packages that come into the U.S. under de minimis, which tops 600 million.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced May 5 that the U.S. will support an intellectual property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines, but cautioned that negotiating the language in Geneva will take time, because of the need for consensus at the World Trade Organization, and because of the “complexity of the issues.” Top Democrats in Congress welcomed the announcement. Tai also said the administration will work to increase production of raw materials for vaccines, which has been the constraint so far for Indian vaccine manufacturers. Pfizer has expressed interest in manufacturing in India if it would speed approval of its vaccine; India currently does not allow imports of Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
Making sure the recent changes to bankruptcy law that affects custom brokers don't expire at the end of the year (see 2012210045) is the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America's top priority, lobbyist Martin Whitmer said during a political update at the NCBFAA conference May 5. The group also is closely watching the 21st Century Customs Framework, renewal of the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill and the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, ACE funding, forced labor legislation, the infrastructure package and the highway bill. “Trade and freight movement are one of the top topics in D.C. right now,” he said. “Members of Congress want to learn from you.”
Angela Ellard, chief Republican trade counsel on the House Ways and Means Committee, will be one of the four deputy directors-general at the World Trade Organization, Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala announced May 4. Ellard has served on the committee staff since 1995.
With the administration's desire to address root causes for migration from Central American countries, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the free trade agreement that covers that region, and the Dominican Republic, has been “very much on my mind recently.”
Seventeen Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, led by New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, are asking the House Appropriations Committee to increase funding of CBP's Office of Trade by $50 million, with instructions that $25 million be dedicated to preventing the import of goods made with forced labor. Their letter, sent May 3, says CBP could use the extra money for origin tracing isotope technology, for its Advanced Trade Analytics Platform, and to hire and train 75 workers.
Trade groups whose members would have to pay foreign digital services taxes and trade groups whose members would have to pay if tariffs are hiked up to 25% on products from the countries imposing DSTs agree that DSTs are wrong and that the government should use all its persuasive power to convince countries like India, the United Kingdom and Spain not to impose these taxes. But the internet trade groups split on whether tariffs are the right tool to convince countries to roll back or never pass DSTs, and retailers and apparel and footwear companies say the tariffs will hurt American businesses and consumers more than the targeted exporters.
In an annual report about intellectual property challenges around the globe, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative praised progress at the United Arab Emirates, and repeated concerns about dozens of countries' weak enforcement and policies it says are barriers to U.S. businesses. China, India, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Venezuela spent another year on the USTR's "priority watch list" for intellectual property violations, while Algeria moved to the lower-intensity "watch list."