Peter Navarro, a White House adviser who specializes in trade, argued during a video interview with the Washington Post that a Biden administration would mean a return “to the old globalist ways of shipping our supply chains offshore.” Navarro said during the Oct. 30 interview that blue-collar workers in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania understand that Joe Biden voted for NAFTA and voted to admit China into the World Trade Organization, and that they blame those actions for millions of lost factory jobs. “Trade's one of the keys to unlocking the Midwest battleground states,” Navarro said.
A change in administrations could boost the National Association for Foreign-Trade Zones' rear guard action against a proposal for the USMCA technical fixes bill, lobbyist Brian Hannigan told listeners at the NAFTZ virtual conference Oct. 29.
The U.S. supports South Korea's Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee rather than the Nigerian candidate for director-general, even though the latter has more support, because the World Trade Organization “must be led with someone with real, hands-on experience in the field,” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in an Oct. 28 statement, saying “the WTO is badly in need of major reform,” and that Yoo is a “bona fide trade expert.”
The Office of Law Revision Counsel found that people who refer to Title 19 tend to know the substance of the provisions by the section number, so a reorganization that would create a change in numbers “posed a greater concern than the OLRC was aware of,” Law Revision Counsel Ralph Seep said in an Oct. 29 e-mail. The OLRC planned to reorganize trade laws from a chronological system to chapters based on subject matter, but recently announced it would hold off (see 2010220050).
Importers who use USMCA have been hoping for a technical fix bill so that merchandise processing fees can be refunded when post-entry claims are made, but the prospects of getting the bill done in the first six months of the treaty seem to be fading. “I haven’t had any discussions with [Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron] Wyden on this subject,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said of the committee's ranking member. He also said he doesn't know if there continues to be opposition to unanimous consent to the technical fixes.
Lawmakers from both parties are asking the Commerce Department and CBP to investigate transshipment and other forms of evasion of antidumping and countervailing duty orders against Chinese-made cabinets. “Time is of the essence so we are urging Commerce and CBP to swiftly investigate and take necessary action to address China's illegal trade practices and protect American manufacturing,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said in a press release announcing an Oct. 27 letter. Manchin, along with Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.; Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va.; and Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., led the letter that was signed by 31 other members of Congress. The Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association, which put out the release, thanked the members for their support, and said it will ensure that the agencies take swift actin to end circumvention.
Ohio's two U.S. senators told the International Trade Commission that Whirlpool and other U.S. washing machine producers need an extension of safeguard tariffs on imports “for the industry to continue to invest in its people, plants, and products.” As Whirlpool said in August, when it requested an extension through Feb. 7, 2024, (see 2008110051), the senators asked that the tariff rate quota be relaxed “only very modestly over the course of the extension.”
CBP is working on a response to the proposal that goods under withhold release orders could be held in foreign-trade zones before the final determination on its status, attendees at the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones virtual conference learned Oct. 27. But Jim Swanson, CBP director-cargo and conveyance security and controls, said “there are issues with that” idea, or else it probably would have been done already.
Five Republican House members told Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in an Oct. 23 letter that the importation of electrical transformers and transformer cores is not a national security issue, and that the increase in imports of the goods from Canada and Mexico is a logical consequence of putting 25% tariffs on the steel used to make these goods. The letter, led by Rep. Denver Riggleman, R-Va., said that adding Section 232 tariffs could put 15,000 transformer industry jobs at risk. Riggleman was defeated in his primary. Reps. Benjamin Cline and Morgan Griffith, both of Virginia; Dan Bishop of North Carolina; and Bruce Westerman of Arkansas also signed.
FBB Federal Relations partner Ray Bucheger told members of the Pacific Coast Council of Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Associations that while the message on the Hill is discouraging on extending current Section 301 exclusions, his firm is working on legislation for the companies that received exclusions too late to get refunds for the tariffs paid.