Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, in announcing March 17 subpoenas on Chinese sellers of information and communications technology and services, that these investigations will help the U.S. determine whether the purchases of this equipment or software is damaging to American national security. “The Biden-Harris Administration has been clear that the unrestricted use of untrusted ICTS poses a national security risk. Beijing has engaged in conduct that blunts our technological edge and threatens our alliances,” she said. “The Administration is firmly committed to taking a whole-of-government approach to ensure that untrusted companies cannot misappropriate and misuse data and ensuring that U.S. technology does not support China’s or other actors’ malign activities.”
The chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee said they want to work together on improving enforcement of America's ban on the importation of goods made with forced labor, with Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, saying, “I'm glad this is an issue we both care deeply about.” They spoke at the beginning of a two-hour hearing on fighting forced labor March 18. Crapo said that Congress should pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would create a rebuttable assumption that goods made in Xinjiang were made with forced labor. Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said CBP needs more resources to enforce the ban. Crapo also said CBP regulation must provide thoughtful guidance “so Americans know how to avoid importing these goods.”
Rep. Haley Stevens, co-chair of a new 34-member House Democratic Manufacturing Task Force, said that the last expiration of the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill hurt companies. “A lot of manufacturers lost out and a lot of hard-working manufacturing workers lost out on wages,” she said during a press conference March 18.
A former World Trade Organization appellate body member and a longtime U.S. trade representative's environment advisory committee member agree that an attempt to create a carbon adjustment mechanism by the European Union is likely to violate trade law and support protectionist aims.
The Coalition for a Prosperous America is asking CBP to reject four recommendations from the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee's Forced Labor Working Group (see 2103160027). CPA says that the working group's advice to take a multi-agency approach on enforcing the ban on imports made with forced labor would limit enforcement actions. It says that asking the government to do more to help industry to minimize forced labor in supply chains “has it completely backwards, and shifts responsibility away from culpable parties.”
House Ways and Means Committee chief trade counsel Katherine Tai was confirmed by the Senate as U.S. trade representative on March 17, by a 98-0 vote. Politicians from both parties, trade skeptics and export-focused trade associations all hailed her promotion to the Biden administration Cabinet. She is the first woman of color to be USTR.
The Senate approved House Ways and Means Chief Trade Counsel Katherine Tai to be the U.S. Trade Representative with no opposition. The Senate voted 98-0 in favor of the confirmation.
Ireland's Prime Minister Micheál Martin told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce audience that as the U.S. is looking for trusted partners to make sure its supply chains are resilient, it should look to Ireland. He noted that his country was the fifth-largest supplier of coronavirus-related goods.
Central American ambassadors and the Secretariat for Central American Economic Integration asked an audience to rediscover the region as a source of trusted supply chain partners and a way to achieve quicker deliveries with a lower carbon footprint.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, one of the leaders of an effort to give Congress more of a voice in Section 232 tariffs, reintroduced a bipartisan bill with six co-sponsors that would give the Defense Department responsibility for certifying that imports are a national security threat, and would allow Congress to rescind trade restrictions under Section 232 through the use of a joint resolution of disapproval. Portman explained that disapproval is limited to oil restrictions, and that was added to the statute in 1980 “in response to concerns about the misuse of the statute.”