A bipartisan, bicameral bill would create a Maritime Security Trust Fund, into which revenues would come from tonnage fees on Chinese-owned and Chinese-flagged ships visiting U.S. ports, special tonnage taxes, light money, and tariffs and duties, including Section 301 tariffs.

The House of Representatives voted 366-34 to fund the government through mid-March, as the Republican majority dropped a debt ceiling provision it tried to pair with the slimmed down spending bill on Dec. 19.

After Elon Musk whipped up opposition to the spending bill, and President-elect Donald Trump came out against it, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives issued a slimmed down spending bill that cut out trade issues, such as renewing the Haiti trade preferences through 2030, and creating outbound investment restrictions for China. The bill, which would fund the government at current levels through mid-March, also raises the debt ceiling for two years.

Interest groups' complaints about the two recent International Trade Commission nominees were barely touched on during a hearing at the Senate Finance Committee.

Four Republicans will join the House Ways and Means Committee in January: Reps. Aaron Bean of Florida, Max Miller of Ohio, Nathaniel Moran of Texas and Rudy Yakym of Indiana.

The Congressional Research Service, in an updated report last week on the ban on goods made with forced labor in the Trade Act of 1930, highlighted how the U.S. has used negotiations in free trade agreements to try to expand the bans on goods made with forced labor.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., asked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to make sure that the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service doesn't prematurely end its ban on livestock imports from Mexico.

A discussion draft modifying a carbon border tax bill narrows the product list, removing fossil fuels, chemicals and other goods that were original targets of the Senate bill, which was introduced a year ago (see 2311030006).

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to open a Section 301 trade investigation on Chinese garlic growers, arguing that the sector is subsidized by forced labor and "other unfair and unethical trade practices."

Restricting de minimis was never a natural fit for the defense policy bill, one of only two major bills expected to get a vote in the lame duck session of Congress. A bill to fund the government past Dec. 20 is the other.