Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., leads a group of progressive House members who blocked a vote on an infrastructure bill that would spend $17 billion on ports over 10 years. On a press call, she told reporters, "We must and we will achieve our goals of passing both (bills)," referring to the infrastructure bill that already passed the Senate, and a broader spending program that mostly addresses social, educational, health and climate spending. However, $3.5 billion of that broader "soft infrastructure" bill would also benefit ports as currently proposed, for electrifying port operations.
The U.S. summary of a weekend call between U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and China's Vice Premier Liu He, the lead negotiator of the phase one agreement, did not use the word tariffs, though it said the two countries would "consult on certain outstanding issues."
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development announced Oct. 8 that it has reached an agreement on a global minimum tax, and a way for countries whose residents access digital services to collect taxes from the companies that provide those services, even if those companies have no local physical presence. These are known as Pillar One and Pillar Two in the OECD.
Heavy truck parts destined for a U.S. assembly plant cannot qualify for USMCA benefits under tariff shift rules, CBP told Mitsubishi Electric's Automotive division. Under USMCA, the original equipment starter must have 60% North American content under a net cost method, or 70% under a transaction value method; that percentage will go up in July 2024 to 64% or 74%, respectively, and 70% or 80% in 2027.
A bipartisan bill was introduced in the House to create an Office of Supply Chain Resiliency and Crisis Response in the Commerce Department, with the goal of partnering with industry, unions, and state and local governments on supply chain vulnerabilities, and ways to plan for supply chain shocks. It would make recommendations on how to expand "the sourcing of critical goods and services, equipment, and technology from allies or key partners of the United States," its writers said.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer,D-Ore., chairman of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, want to pass a law that would require importers of certain commodities to first certify that they exercised reasonable care that the products they are buying were not produced on illegally deforested land. If the goods -- such as palm oil, soybeans, cattle, cocoa and rubber -- are coming from a country that the government designated as high-risk for illegal deforestation, importers will have to fully document their supply chains and the measures buyers took to ensure it was not produced on deforested land.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said that while what he called the "food fight between Democrats" is preventing legislation from moving this year, "this next year would be an opportune time to have a conversation about [Section 232 reform] in a bipartisan way." Brady, who was responding to a question during a call with reporters Oct. 6, said he'd like to be a part of that conversation about the use of national security tariffs and Congress's role in setting tariffs.
Two Chinese scholars specializing in international trade said they found U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai's Oct. 4 speech (see 2110040008) encouraging, even though she criticized Chinese adherence to market principles and the effect that has on companies around the world.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., one of the original advocates for narrowing the authority of the executive branch to impose national security tariffs or quotas, has once again introduced a bipartisan bill to reform the legislation that delegated that authority. Toomey, joined by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., six other Democrats and 10 other Republicans, said the prior administrations abused Section 232 tariffs "to protect favored industries, which has resulted in economic disruption, damage to U.S. relationships with our allies, and harmful retaliatory tariffs on American farmers and manufacturers."
One measure of how much more common detentions over forced labor have become is that the withhold release order affecting cotton grown in Xinjiang has led to either the detention or diversion of more than 1,000 shipments, said Nate Herman, American Apparel and Footwear Association vice president for policy. Herman said the value of the garments or textiles in those shipments added up to hundreds of millions of dollars, "probably over a billion dollars at this point and only a handful of them have been released, maybe a dozen, maybe a little bit more."