The Section 301 tariffs list should not be used to "pick winners and losers in the free market," the American Apparel and Footwear Association announced just after the National Council of Textile Organizations testified to a review panel that it wants clothing added to the tariff list. In 2017, the U.S. imported nearly $100 billion more in apparel and textiles than it exported, the NCTO said in its submission to the panel, and Chinese exports in these categories account for about 12 percent of the overall bilateral trade deficit. China's exports are responsible for the loss of hundreds of thousands of mill and garment factory jobs, they said, and "the remaining vestiges" of the apparel industry won't ask for antidumping investigations because they are held hostage by their customers, who import the bulk of what they sell, the submission said.
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.
Chinese drugmakers and device makers, U.S. device makers that import Chinese components, and the distributors who sell supplies to hospitals and government agencies all asked the Section 301 panel to spare the healthcare sector from 25 percent tariffs on Chinese imports. The testimony came on the last of three days of hearings by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative as the panel works to refine a list of 1,300 tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods. Witnesses said these Chinese items do not necessarily follow China's industrial policy of forced tech transfer or its efforts to leapfrog into more advanced manufacturing. Linda Rouse O'Neill, vice president of government affairs for the Health Industry Distributors Association, said tariffs aren't just going to be an economic drag on the healthcare system. "It's really going to exacerbate product shortages," she said. "We already don't have enough personal protective equipment."
A bill that would require the postal service to get advance electronic information about international mail packages and share that with CBP passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee on May 16. Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Mich., and Trade Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., introduced the Securing the International Mail Against Opioids Act of 2018, H.R. 5788, on May 15. The committee considered the bill, which combines several pieces of legislation meant to fight opioid abuse, during a May 16 markup.
More than 1,000 of the 1,300 tariff lines on the list of products that could be affected by Section 301 tariffs would impact General Electric's operations, but the company is asking for just 34 items to be removed from the list. On May 16, during the second day of the International Trade Commission's public hearing to help it refine the list of products subject to 25 percent tariffs, Karan Bhatia, who leads GE's government affairs and policy office, suggested the committee exclude intra-company inputs from owned and controlled Chinese factories because those don't involve forced technology transfer, something the Section 301 tariffs are meant to address. He suggested items that have high U.S. content by value that come from China also should be excluded.
A wide range of industries asked to be spared -- or protected -- in the first day of the International Trade Commission's public hearing that will hear from more than 120 companies, a major union, and trade groups, including those from China. The panel is tasked with refining the list of products subject to 25 percent tariffs, which accounted for $50 billion in imports last year. The size of the action was shaped by an estimate of the cost to U.S. companies of forced tech transfer, market access restrictions and intellectual property theft.
A bipartisan bill led by Maine senators Susan Collins (R) and Angus King (D) calls for the end of cash deposit collections on newsprint and a stay to final determinations in the antidumping and countervailing duty cases. Both would be halted until after a study on the economics of newspapers and newsprint is concluded, and until President Donald Trump still certifies that antidumping and countervailing cases against Canadian groundwood paper exporters is in the national interest.
Characterizing the seven-year ban on exports to Chinese telecom giant ZTE as "our initial thought," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said officials will examine alternative punishments. "We will be doing that very, very promptly," he said at a question-and-answer session with journalists. His remarks on May 14 came a day after President Donald Trump tweeted: "President Xi [Jinping] of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!"
Congress needs to be notified by May 17 of a deal for updating NAFTA in order to vote in the lame duck session, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said during a speech at the Ripon Society. "As the author of [Trade Promotion Authority], I can tell you we have to have the paper -- not just an agreement. We have to have the paper from USTR by May 17 for us to vote on it this year, in December, in the lame duck," he said on May 9. Ryan also alluded to the U.S. position on Canadian dairy protections, and his desire that Investor-State Dispute Settlement be retained in NAFTA 2.0.
Two pro-trade Democrats, a Freedom Caucus member and a retiring moderate Republican have banded together to introduce a bill meant to curtail executive power on trade proceedings. The bill would create a process similar to the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to nullify recently completed rulemakings, for trade measures. "It’s time that Congress steps up to the plate, and uses the powers granted by our Constitution to collaboratively shape U.S. trade policy,” lead sponsor Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., said in a statement announcing the bill's introduction May 10.
President Donald Trump's frequent trashing of NAFTA doesn't really matter when the principals sit around the table, as they did May 11, said Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo. "President Trump has been very consistent, even before entering politics, he has had that view," Guajardo said outside the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. While he said Mexico, Canada and some in the U.S. believe the economic integration of North America has been positive, he explained: "That is not what we are negotiating. We are not negotiating views. We are negotiating realities. We do believe, and that is something we agree with President Trump, that trade agreements and public policy have to be aware of how you have distortions in the system. And you have to accommodate the public policy to help those that feel displaced for trade. In that sense, these are new times for policymakers."