U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai took a victory lap at the U.S Chamber of Commerce's Transatlantic Business Works Summit, pointing to the removal of the digital services taxes on American firms, the agreement on steel and aluminum and the resolution of a 17-year fight on subsidies for Airbus and Boeing.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act passed the House of Representatives 428-1, with only Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., voting against it.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., criticized business interests as more allied with Chinese interests than with American ones, and said that even as a Uyghur Forced Labor bill was expected to advance in the House, it wasn't much closer to becoming law.
The Coalition for a Prosperous America asked the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to allow domestic companies to rebut exclusion applications that claim that there are no affordable alternatives to Chinese products. "Unlike the prior tariff exclusion rounds, the Biden Administration has chosen not to afford any opportunity for domestic producers to rebut unsubstantiated and false claims in importers’ requests," the Coalition wrote in a letter it made public on Dec. 6. It said that USTR needs to closely scrutinize the 2,024 exclusion requests.
John Butler, CEO of the World Shipping Council, said ocean carriers are getting mixed messages from the White House, which is encouraging carriers and ports to rev up their leverage on buyers and freight forwarders so that they pick up their cargo promptly, and from Congress. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on an Ocean Shipping Reform Act that would give the Federal Maritime Commission more authority to punish players for unreasonable demurrage charges -- the same fees used as leverage.
The Build Back Better Act that passed the House will offer an additional $4,500 tax credit for American-assembled electric vehicles from union plants, and it seems likely that the Senate version will strip the unionized portion of that, given West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin's opposition. Georgia, which has two newly elected Democratic senators, also is home to a major electric battery manufacturer and a Kia plant. The Kia plant has not yet announced plans to make an electric car.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., joined by six other Republicans, introduced a bill that would open a CBP preclearance facility in Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport. A companion bill is going to be introduced in the House by Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., he said. The Taiwan Preclearance Act would create the first preclearance facility in Asia. Currently, there are agricultural specialists and CBP officers at preclearance sites in Ireland, Aruba, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the United Arab Emirates and Canada. “Taiwan is a leading democracy, a vital partner of the United States, and the perfect place for America’s first preclearance facility in the Indo-Pacific,” Hawley said. “The Taiwan Preclearance Act sets us on a path to establish just such a facility, which will not only benefit the American people, but also strengthen U.S.-Taiwan relations as we work together to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America urged its members to share information about where their employees work, and to make calls to their representatives so that a temporary change to bankruptcy law that benefits brokers does not expire at the end of the year. The group "had several calls over the last couple weeks to rally congressional members to support" the Customs Business Fairness Act, Legislative Committee Chair Laurie Arnold said. “The overwhelming comment we receive during these conversations is ‘how many constituents are in my district that this would help?’ It is very difficult for us to give a good answer since we don’t have a complete list from our members.” This year, if an importer declares bankruptcy, the duties that brokers passed through to CBP in the 90 days before the bankruptcy filing are not subject to clawback. But if the provision expires, NCBFAA says, "We are left in the middle holding the bag and potentially on the line to hand over millions of dollars, depending on the size of the importer, to the bankruptcy trustee." The group lobbied for more than 20 years to get this change, "and we now have it," they wrote in an advisory to members. "Don’t let it slip away!"
Cabinet-level officials in both Mexico and Canada are furiously lobbying U.S. senators to change an electric vehicle incentive in the Build Back Better bill, so that it does not discriminate against cars built in their countries. As passed by the House, the incentive gives larger credits for cars built in the U.S. with U.S. batteries and with at least 50% U.S. content; and in 2027, only cars assembled in the U.S. would be eligible for the purchase credit.
The newly formed Coalition for Economic Partnerships in the Americas does not explicitly say that the textile rules of origin in CAFTA-DR need reform, though it calls on the administration "to do what previous administrations ignored: to structure trade to support investment in the United States and our allies in Central America. In order for our economy to thrive, we must eliminate the bureaucratic red tape that hinders production and investment in the region."