Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in a radio interview in late December, explained that a bill he introduced with fellow Iowa Republican Joni Ernst and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., was "not in any way going to guarantee farmers lower fertilizer costs, but we just want to know why fertilizer prices are going up as high as they have." The bill directs USDA to detail how much fertilizer, of what types, and from what companies and countries, is imported into the U.S., and asks the department to describe the "impacts that antidumping duties and countervailing duties have on prices of fertilizer paid at the retail level."
Presidential proclamations for Section 232 steel tariff rate quotas for EU countries, and for tariff rate quotas for aluminum, were published Dec. 28, with no changes to aggregate volume from the last two-year deal. The new quotas will last through the end of 2025.
China sanctioned American compliance risk advisory firm Kharon, a Kharon researcher and a researcher at the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in reaction to recent U.S. sanctions announced on Human Rights Day earlier this month (see 2312080026).
More than 400 products that are excluded from Section 301 tariffs will continue to enter under normal duties through May 31, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced Dec. 26. The exclusions had been scheduled to end at the end of this year.
Apparel, which accounts for about 37% of imports covered by Caribbean Basin Initiative and Haiti-specific programs, may no longer support jobs in Haiti if a renewal of at least 10 years isn't passed well ahead of Haiti's HOPE and HELP programs' expiration in October 2025, industry is arguing.
The Biden administration is expanding its ban on importing certain Russian seafood and diamonds so that seafood caught in Russian waters or by Russia's fishing fleet but processed elsewhere, including in China, will be banned. The ban on industrial diamonds also has expanded so that those diamonds, if incorporated into goods in another country, also are banned.
In a report on how Russia is living up to its World Trade Organization commitments -- a report produced every other year for Congress -- the U.S. trade representative wrote that Russia has expanded import substitution to state-owned enterprises and private enterprises, including a ban on imported equipment.
After the EU decided to extend its suspension of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. whiskey, motorcycles and other products, several senators took credit for pushing the U.S. trade representative to achieve that result.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a longtime advocate for sugar policy revisions and increased sugar imports, asked the Agriculture Department and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative "to swiftly implement recommendations made by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its recent report, 'Sugar Program: Alternative Methods for Implementing Import Restrictions Could Increase Effectiveness'" (see 2310310063). The report, which noted that raw sugar imports haven't filled the tariff rate quotas in any of the past 27 years, recommended USDA evaluate alternative methods of allocating raw sugar TRQs, and that USTR consider other allocation methods that would meet World Trade Organization obligations.
A senator who is pushing against reductions in the scope of the Section 301 tariff action against China (see 2311210048) said that while he "had some good conversations with the administration about it," he doesn't know when the administration will announce the results of its review.