Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., and 20 other members of the House of Representatives, mostly from the Midwest, asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to make the ethanol export market in Brazil a priority, because Brazil has both non-tariff barriers and tariffs on U.S. ethanol exports.
A joint letter from U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to the Senate Finance Committee chairman defended their efforts to engage with Congress as they negotiate the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-Minn., and 62 other Republican members, including Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to open a formal dispute under USMCA over Mexico's treatment of biotech corn imports.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., along with Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., introduced the Formula 3.0 Act, a bill that would permanently waive tariffs and lower trade barriers on imported infant formula.
Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who previously asked the administration to warn Uganda that its anti-gay law risked its continued participation in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (see 2304280060), is now calling on the administration to revoke Uganda's tariff breaks under AGOA. The law allows for the death penalty for gay sex with a minor, or for HIV-positive gay people having sex. It provides for up to 10 years in prison for asserting you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, nonbinary or transgender.
House Ways and Means Committee Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., and Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., introduced the Undertaking Negotiations on Investment and Trade for Economic Dynamism (United) Act, a bill that directs the administration to begin negotiations for a comprehensive free trade agreement within 180 days of passage.
Ten Democrats in the House, led by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., introduced a package of bills regulating cosmetics, including a measure that would require cosmetics suppliers to provide to the brand that sells their goods a full list of ingredients, chemical registry numbers, heavy metal testing results, safety data sheets, manufacturing flow charts, an International Fragrance Association standards conformity certificate and whether any allergens are present.
In a vote late on May 24, 214 members of the House of Representatives voted to override President Joe Biden's veto of a resolution that aimed to end the two-year pause on anti-circumvention deposits for some solar panel imports from Southeast Asia. There were 205 members who voted to continue the policy, and Congress needs a two-thirds majority to override a veto.
The Ocean Shipping Reform Implementation Act, a follow-up bill to OSRA from original co-sponsors Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., and Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., passed 58-1 out of the House Transportation Committee May 23.
Members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate introduced the Safeguarding American Value-Added Exports (SAVE) Act, which will amend the Agriculture Trade Act of 1978 to "include and define a list of common names for ag commodities, food products, and terms used in marketing and packaging of products," Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., announced in a press release last week. In addition, SAVE also will direct the secretary of agriculture and the U.S. trade representative to negotiate with "our foreign trading partners to defend the right to use common names for ag commodities in those same foreign markets," the press release said.