A bipartisan, bicameral bill would allow cashmere products made in Mongolia duty-free access to the U.S., as a way of strengthening Mongolia's democracy, its sponsors say.
A bill that would ban the importation of commodities grown or produced on illegally deforested land was reintroduced in both the House and the Senate. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., are the co-sponsors in the House; Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., are the co-sponsors in the Senate.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, acknowledged in a hallway interview at the Capitol that he has been briefed that the Biden administration will lift Section 301 tariffs from some products as part of its review of the action against Chinese trade abuses.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., said in a hallway interview at the Capitol that he thinks there is momentum for an end-of-the-year tax bill to come together. He said he would like a renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program to get attached to such a bill. "I think there's bipartisan interest, and that's key," he said, but he said he's not predicting that it will happen.
A House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy and Regulatory Affairs hearing focused on the need for more domestic mining of critical minerals, but administration witnesses noted that imports -- and subsidizing processing of domestically mined minerals -- are just as essential to uninterrupted supply.
Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-Va., called on DHS to do more isotopic testing for enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The plea for more isotopic testing, which came in a Nov. 29 letter, is in response to a Reuters report finding that of 86 samples tested from December 2022 to May, 15% tested positive for Xinjiang cotton (see 2309010038).
A researcher in the International Trade Commission's Office of Industry and Competitiveness Analysis said the share of de minimis shipments from China is falling -- it was 58% in 2021 -- but goods made in China may be coming from countries whose shipments are rising, such as Canada. Canada accounts for 8% of small-value packages. De minimis shipments are subject to risk-based screening, but the importers do not pay any tariffs.
The Coalition for a Prosperous America, joined by organizations that advocate for opiate addicts and by police organizations, asked the White House to "delink e-commerce transactions from Section 321 privileges," in a letter sent Nov. 29.
Prominent members of the House of Representatives objected to a USMCA panel ruling last week that said Canada's rewrite of its tariff rate quotas for U.S. dairy exports didn't violate the trade agreement (see 2311240002). U.S. farmers thought they would have the opportunity to sell directly to Canadian consumers, but dairy processors in Canada still control access.
Three-quarters of the Republican majority on the House Ways and Means Committee, along with five committee Democrats, told the U.S. trade representative that they oppose her "decision to abandon important bipartisan digital trade proposals at the World Trade Organization (WTO). This action, which was made without sufficient consultation with Congress, runs counter to the interests of American workers and businesses of all sizes and cedes more leverage to other foreign powers, including the Peoples’ Republic of China, that seek to write the rules of the 21st-century digital economy. We urge the administration to reconsider its approach."