At a White House press briefing, National Economic Council Deputy Director Sameera Fazili said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will lead a Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force "to tackle near-term bottlenecks in the semiconductor, homebuilding and construction, transportation, and agricultural and food industries."

President Joe Biden will nominate Grant Harris to be the Commerce Department's assistant secretary for industry and analysis within the International Trade Administration, the White House announced June 3. Harris is the CEO of the consulting firm Connect Frontier, which advises companies doing business in “emerging and frontier markets,” the White House said. He also teaches strategy and political risk in emerging markets and previously served as a special assistant to President Barack Obama and deputy chief of staff to former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.

House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., praised CBP's withhold release order on Dalian Ocean Fishing (see 2105280019). "The Biden administration’s action represents an important step forward on forced labor enforcement -- the previous administration had only been willing to take action against individual vessels, even though it is widely recognized that when forced labor occurs it’s often pervasive throughout entire fishing fleets. In this case, CBP’s actions come after several reports indicated that crew members aboard the fishing company have died due to harsh working conditions," he said in a statement after the WRO was announced. He noted that the U.S. trade representative proposed at the World Trade Organization that the overfishing negotiations include the issue of forced labor. "I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in Congress and the administration towards stronger forced labor enforcement as well as addressing the interlinked issues of forced labor and environmental protection,” he said May 28.

Over 300 U.S. manufacturers wrote to President Joe Biden to request an end to Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, the Coalition of American Metal Manufacturers and Users said in a news release May 6. “Manufacturers in the United States currently face historic shortages of readily available and globally priced steel and aluminum products at a time when the country is relying on our sector to help drive the economy and overcome the unprecedented challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the group said in the letter. “Without termination of the tariffs, this situation will worsen if Washington moves forward with an infrastructure bill to invest in America, as these projects will create more strain on domestic steel and aluminum supplies, causing delays in construction and risking manufacturing jobs.”

The White House will hold a summit April 12 with the semiconductor industry to address the global semiconductor shortage and other supply chain issues. The meeting will include representatives from 20 major companies, including carmakers General Motors and Ford, chip companies GlobalFoundries and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, and several major technology companies, including Alphabet, Dell Technologies and Intel, the White House said April 9. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo will also participate.

A brief sketch of President Joe Biden's budget priorities, released April 9, proposes increasing Commerce Department funding by 28%, or $2.5 billion. A bullet list of where extra funding would go, without line-item details, says the administration would increase hiring at the International Trade Administration, so that it could have sufficient resources “to defend U.S. workers by addressing unfair foreign trade practices and barriers, strengthening enforcement of U.S. trade laws, and enhancing oversight of foreign government compliance with trade agreements.”

President Joe Biden announced on March 30 he is nominating Tiffany Cunningham, partner at Perkins Coie in Chicago, for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Cunningham is a member of Perkins Coie's patent litigation practice.

President Joe Biden plans to continue to address Chinese human rights violations and unfair trade practices, and soon will host an “alliance of democracies” to discuss how to better hold China accountable, he told reporters March 25. Speaking during his first formal news conference as president, Biden didn’t say when the meeting with allies will take place but said he will push partners to make China “follow the rules.”

On the same day that 37 trade associations worked to draw attention to a renewed push to eliminate Section 232 tariffs, a left of center think tank published a paper disagreeing with the arguments that the Tariff Reform Coalition is making, that steel and aluminum sanctions cost more jobs in manufacturing than they saved at primary steel producers.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will be meeting with some top Chinese officials March 18, but the trade war will not be front and center, he told reporters at a White House press conference March 12. A reporter asked what China would have to do for the U.S. to reduce or lift tariffs, or loosen export controls. “I don’t expect that, for example, the phase one trade deal is going to be a major topic of conversation next week,” Sullivan said; instead, it will be more about geopolitical issues and human rights, not details on tariffs and export controls. “But we will communicate that the United States is going to take steps, in terms of what we do on technology, to ensure that our technology is not being used in ways that are inimical to our values or adverse to our security. We will communicate that message at a broad level,” he said. He added that before the U.S. can begin negotiating on trade, there's more work to do with allies, “to come up with a common approach, a joint approach, before we go sit down point by point with the Chinese government on these issues.”