The White House on July 25 countered Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s threat to withdraw the U.S. from the World Trade Organization if the WTO goes against his plans to raise tariffs on exports from companies that moved their U.S. operations overseas. In response to a question about Trump's discussion of the WTO, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest touted the enforcement mechanisms the WTO provides, highlighting a case the U.S. filed earlier this month against Chinese duties on several raw materials exports (see 1607190039) and added that leaving the WTO could jeopardize global supply chain relationships (here). For example, that could inhibit U.S. companies’ ability to import integral auto parts and support autoworkers, he said. The issue came up on the July 24 episode of Meet the Press (here) when host Chuck Todd suggested to guest Trump that some of his planned tariff increases would be shot down at the WTO. “It doesn't matter,” Trump responded. “Then we're going to renegotiate or we're going to pull out. These trade deals are a disaster, Chuck. World Trade Organization is a disaster.”
After chants of “no TPP” swelled through the arena during the speech by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia the evening of July 25, delegates approved a party platform (here) that identifies a need for fair, labor-protecting trade deals but stops short of aligning with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s stated opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “Over the past three decades, America has signed too many trade deals that have not lived up to the hype,” the Democratic platform says. “Trade deals often boosted the profits of large corporations, while at the same time failing to protect workers’ rights, labor standards, the environment, and public health. We need to end the race to the bottom and develop trade policies that support jobs in America.” The vast majority of the platform’s trade section contains the same language as its draft (see 1607110038). For example, like the draft, it doesn’t outright condemn the presence of investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms in trade agreements, yet says that democratic decision-making “must not” be undermined through “special interests” and “private courts for corporations” in trade deals, whose negotiations should be “transparent and inclusive.”
President Barack Obama continued to defend the Trans-Pacific Partnership on July 22 amid opposition from both the Republican and the Democratic presidential tickets, saying it is more feasible to steer globalization more fairly through TPP than to “build a wall” around technological advances, an increasingly integrated global supply chain and changes in transportation (here). Obama spoke at a joint press conference alongside Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during his recent visit to Washington. Pena Nieto also championed the pact, saying it strengthens NAFTA and opens up a “highly promising” economic platform for economic development and resultant benefits for all 12 member nations. “There are dangers that globalization increased inequality. There are dangers that because capital is mobile and workers are not, if we are not providing them sufficient protection, they can be left behind in this process,” Obama said. “That’s what we have to focus on, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership is consistent with that.” Meanwhile, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential running mate, is reportedly expected to publicly announce his opposition “soon,” The Washington Post reported (here).
President Barack Obama on July 22 issued an executive order directing the Treasury Department on how to coordinate interagency recommendations for the White House in cases that involve foreign currency manipulation or reduce significant trade surpluses with the U.S., as determined through Treasury investigations (here). Customs reauthorization legislation signed into law earlier this year required Treasury to issue reports on the exchange rate practices of any major trading partner that has a significant bilateral trade surplus with the U.S., a material current account surplus and has repeatedly intervened in currency markets (see 1602240071). The legislation also requires the president to offset countries’ failures to adopt adequate policies to reverse currency manipulation and external surpluses within one year (see 1605020035). According to the executive order, if the Treasury secretary finds that a country hasn’t adopted policies to “correct the undervaluation and surpluses” pursuant to the customs law, the assistant to the president for economic policy, in consultation with the Treasury secretary, the U.S. Trade Representative, the secretary of State, and the Commerce secretary will advise the president on available courses of action or on whether the president should waive the requirement to take remedial action. The order also authorizes State, Treasury, Commerce and the Office of the USTR to delegate outlined functions.
During Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s visit to the White House on July 22, he and President Barack Obama agreed to implement the bilateral Air Transport Agreement, which will create more opportunities for cargo airlines to fly across the border, the White House said (here). The countries are also considering an expansion of the ongoing pre-inspection pilots (see 1601130018) for good bound to other U.S. airports, it said. Both countries will continue work to improve the pilots at the Laredo (Texas) International Airport and Mexican customs facilities at Mesa de Otay, Baja California, and will launch a previously planned pilot in San Jeronimo, Mexico, by spring 2017, the White House said. Additionally, the governments each plan to publish reference guides to highlight options to finance ports of entry on both sides of the border. “Together, these efforts will help inform and improve our border infrastructure processes,” the White House said. Today, July 22, Mexico is publishing a “cluster map,” which will identify clusters of interconnected firms and allow stakeholders to find trade opportunities, among other things, the fact sheet says. Pena Nieto, Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in June pledged that their governments would post cluster maps online (see 1606300015).
No “significant trade agreements” should be “rushed” or considered in lame duck congresses, the Republican Party said in its presidential platform, released July 18 (here). Some believe lame duck consideration of a Trans-Pacific Partnership to be the trade pact's best chance for approval (see 1607130040). The platform does not specifically mention TPP or NAFTA, both of which presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has criticized. A GOP House Ways and Means Committee spokeswoman said committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, “believes that the substance and support for the agreement will drive the timing of the vote.” When free trade agreements don’t adequately protect U.S. interests or sovereignty, or when violated without penalty, “they must be rejected,” but “carefully negotiated” deals that are negotiated with “friendly democracies" boost U.S. export-based jobs. The Senate Finance Committee didn’t comment.
Vice President Joe Biden this week highlighted the Obama administration’s trade enforcement record, framing the U.S.’s filing against Chinese export taxes on raw materials at the World Trade Organization (see 1607130012) this week as a move to protect U.S. manufacturing and reverse harmful effects of globalization. “Not all effects of globalization are good, but what Americans have always done is they’ve always bent reality to benefit Americans and American workers,” he said during a July 13 speech at the Port of San Diego (here). He said the U.S. will continue to pursue cases against steel subsidization and dumping, including by China, adding that the administration has assessed $1.2 billion in duties on products from 40 countries believed to trade unfairly, and that it has won all 12 cases it has filed against China at the WTO.
President Barack Obama’s statement that the United Kingdom would fall to the “back of the queue” on U.S. trade agreement negotiations after exiting the EU remains true, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said June 27 (here). “The actual negotiations over the [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership] need to be looked at,” he said. “If we have to start from the beginning with the British people, it’s just going to, as a matter of fact, be at a different queue.” UK citizens voted on June 23 to leave the EU, setting in motion a roughly two-year administrative departure process (see 1606240041). Schultz also said the administration is still working with the EU to conclude TTIP negotiations this year.
President Barack Obama’s senior advisers would recommend that he veto a House fiscal 2017 spending bill, partly because it proposes to cut $5 million from the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s current $125 million budget, and would ban use of funds to further transactions involving Cuban government-confiscated property, according to an Office of Management and Budget Statement of Administration Policy released June 21 (here). The $120 million for CPSC proposed in the House Appropriations Committee’s version of the fiscal 2017 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill falls short of Obama’s request by $11 million.
President Barack Obama on June 22 signed into law the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, a reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Following the House’s May approval, the Senate passed the bill on June 7 after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., dropped his hold on the legislation (see 1606080021). The legislation would provide the Environmental Protection Agency with more tools to get testing information on chemical substances, preempt some state chemical regulations, clarify the treatment of trade secrets submitted to the EPA, and update the collection of fees pursuant to TSCA, among other things.