The House Appropriations Committee has approved a bill that would increase trade funding at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Bureau of Industry and Security and the International Trade Administration. The committee voted July 14, and now goes to the full House. The bill, which passed the committee only with Democrat votes, and so may not be tolerable to the Republicans who control the Senate, increases funding to BIS by $9.6 million, to $137.6 million. It increases funding to USTR by $1 million, to $55 million, and ups funding to the International Trade Administration by $21.4 million, to $542.4 million. Spending for CBP will be part of a Department of Homeland Security bill, and the amount has not been determined yet.
Fifty-two members of Congress, led by Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., and Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to engage with Congress during the negotiations of a phase two agreement with Japan.
Rep. Rick Larsen, one of the chairpersons of the New Democrats' trade task force, told the Washington International Trade Association that he thinks the U.S. has not gotten any benefit out of the Trump administration's trade war. When asked by International Trade Today if a Joe Biden administration would roll back the Section 301 tariffs, even if China does not give concessions on industrial subsidies or state-owned enterprises, Larsen said, “I think the next administration needs to reset where we are, how we’re going to approach this.”
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., want Congress to say on the record that belonging to the World Trade Organization has value, even as the U.S. seeks reforms to its system, including in dispute resolution and how developing countries are treated. Their resolution was introduced July 2.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., joined by one Republican and three Democratic congressmen from the New York House delegation, is asking the U.S. Trade Representative to make sure that Canada keeps its promises on dairy tariff rate quotas and eliminating Class 6 and Class 7 milk price controls.
Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, asked White House trade adviser Peter Navarro to answer a series of questions related to former National Security Adviser John Bolton's assertion that President Donald Trump pleaded with China's president to buy more soybeans and wheat, so Trump could win re-election. He asked him to confirm the claim, and to say whether he was in all the meetings between Trump and the Chinese president that Bolton described. He asked for the answers by July 14.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, celebrated the switchover from NAFTA to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement -- coming July 1 -- but also talked about a trade irritant with Canada and one with Mexico in a conference call with reporters June 30.
A bipartisan group of senators unveiled a bill June 24 that would provide billions of dollars of federal funding for semiconductor research and manufacturing. The American Foundries Act, which is expected to be formally introduced June 29, according to a June 25 Reuters report, comes amid a strong bipartisan push (see 2006110038) for funding of U.S. technology innovation to counter China's influence in the sector.
The Senate passed a bill June 25 that would sanction Chinese officials, companies and foreign banks associated with Beijing’s interference in Hong Kong’s autonomy (see 2005260031). “We urge the Government of China to abandon their ongoing efforts to repress freedoms in Hong Kong,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who introduced the bill along with Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said in a statement. “There will be a price to pay if they continue down that path.” Toomey said he hopes the House will “pass it in short order, so the president can sign it.”
The Senate’s 2021 Intelligence Authorization Act would require the director of National Intelligence to assess U.S. export controls on critical technologies, according to a June 17 Senate report on the bill. The bill, which was passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month, calls for a review of U.S. controls on artificial intelligence, microchips, advanced manufacturing equipment and “other AI-enabled technologies,” the report said. It would also require the administration to identify areas for export control cooperation with “international partners.” Another provision in the bill requires the CIA, the Treasury Department and the FBI to submit a report to Congress on Chinese and Russian officials that could be targeted with U.S. sanctions.