American Apparel and Footwear Association CEO Steve Lamar told U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai that freight rates and delays are a crisis, and wrote, "We implore you ... to provide the kind of immediate and short-term relief that companies need today to survive this existential threat. We urge you to retroactively reinstate the expired Section 301 tariff exclusions. Further, we urge you to suspend the application of all Section 301 tariffs going forward. Combined, these actions would immediately make millions of dollars available to companies that are hardest hit by the shipping crisis."
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., told International Trade Today that a carbon border adjustment tax is still "in the mix" as Democrats try to figure out how to pay for a broad array of social and environmental spending. A carbon border adjustment tax could add tariffs to certain imports that are carbon-intensive, if the U.S. determines their manufacture was less clean than the domestic manufacturing processes. But when pressed during a Sept. 23 hallway interview with reporters for more details on where things are on the tax, Neal acknowledged that the discussion of this tax is more conceptual than practical. "Did it come up as a talking point? Yes. Did it come up as a solution point? No." Neal said that all the pay-fors that passed out of Ways and Means are on the menu of options for how to pay for the Build Back Better bill. That includes restricting the use of drawback by tobacco importers and exporters (see 2109130038).
Trade professionals and a trade scholar, talking on a panel that compared the Trump and Biden administrations' trade policies, said that not as much has changed on trade as might have been expected. Christine McDaniel, an economist at George Mason University, said she doesn't expect any of the Section 301 tariffs or the steel and aluminum tariffs to be lifted before the end of 2021. "I haven’t seen any indication they’re going to pull back on the tariffs," she said during a seminar at the Virginia Small Business Development Center on Sept. 21. "I’ve heard people say that the Trump trade policy is just being continued by the Biden administration, minus the rhetoric. You can make the argument for that."
Importers that used to benefit from the Generalized System of Preferences program have paid about $750 million in tariffs since the program expired at the end of last year, according to a Sept. 21 letter to the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee. The letter, signed by more than 300 trade groups and firms, says the lapse of the GSP benefits program hurts workers at importing companies, which are also dealing with much higher freight costs and pandemic impacts.
Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the co-chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, said that in order to transition as soon as possible to renewable energy without doing so "on the backs of slave labor," the House of Representatives "must pass and the president must sign into law the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act." The Senate passed a version of this bill in July; a House version was included in the EAGLE Act, which passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Merkley's co-chair, Rep Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, said he felt the Senate approach was not strong enough (see 2107290018). Merkley and McGovern are both Democrats.
In reaction to news that China has formally asked to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (see 2109170052), TPP's two greatest champions in the Senate said negotiations on trade with Asian allies must resume. Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, issued a joint statement Sept. 20: “It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that China is taking steps to strengthen their trade powers across the globe. For quite some time, we have been warning about China’s subtle yet deliberate moves to join the CPTPP -- the very trade pact crafted to counter China’s trade influence that the United States mistakenly walked away from. And last week, we saw them take an affirmative step in that troubling direction. We’ve long believed that United States trade leadership is critical for our country’s economy and national security -- and it’s clear that China is not waiting to assert itself in the region. The U.S. cannot afford to continue waiting in the hallway -- we must get our seat back at the table to re-engage our Asia Pacific allies in trade.”
Customs brokers in Washington to lobby for the Customs Business Fairness Act renewal should also talk about the importance of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2021, National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America transportation committee members told the annual government affairs conference attendees, as a way to fight excessive detention and demurrage fees.
The Reinforcing American-Made Products Act, which would prevent states from making more stringent rules for “Made in USA” labeling than the Federal Trade Commission rule, passed the Senate by unanimous consent Sept. 15. A House companion bill has not yet been introduced.
A day after the White House's primary spokesperson said that if there's an opportunity to renegotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that's a discussion the U.S. could join, a former White House trade negotiator said the path to reentering the TPP is so steep that he doesn't think it's likely in the next few years.
The legislative language for a proposed change to the treatment of excise tax drawback claims on exported tobacco would make such claims ineligible not just going forward (see 2109130038), but also would disallow claims filed since Dec. 18, 2018. That is the date that CBP issued a final rule saying that such claims were not allowed. However, the prohibition did not take effect until Feb. 19, 2019, because of the 60-day waiting period after the rule's publication (see 1908300032). The final rule was overturned in court, so some exporters have been collecting substitution drawback on these goods -- or as the government calls it, "double drawback," since the case was won.