Congress should “pressure” the Biden administration to pursue free trade deals with the U.K., Kenya, Taiwan and others if it wants to convince U.S. allies to move supply chains out of China, said Clete Willems, a former National Security Council official. Willems, speaking during a House Financial Services Committee hearing this week, also called on the administration to join and renegotiate the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, arguing the U.S. needs to match China’s “aggressive pursuit” of trade deals, specifically mentioning the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

With hostile acts like China recently sending a spy balloon drifting across the U.S., Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said it's difficult to manage the U.S.-China relationship "when our economies are deeply integrated."

No House Ways and Means Committee members are among the Democratic Party's choices for the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, suggesting that changes in tariff policy are not a high priority for Democratic leadership.

Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee will join the Republican minority on the Senate Finance Committee, Republicans announced this week. Two of the Republicans who previously served on the committee chose not to run again in 2022, and one quit part-way through his term to become a university president.

Reps. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., and Dan Kildee, D-Mich., joined by two Republicans from sugar-growing states and one other Michigan Democrat, are calling for U.S. sugar policy reform, but only after major exporters end their government subsidies, which they say are unfair. They named Brazil, India, Thailand, Mexico and the EU as offenders. Their resolution puts the onus on the White House to suggest legislation on U.S. sugar policy once trading partners change their practices.

Many members are asking the Senate Finance Committee chairman about renewing trade preferences programs, he told International Trade Today. Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he recognizes the importance of renewing the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, but was evasive about whether he would support clean renewals, or would require that an extension of Trade Adjustment Assistance accompany the bills.

Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, asked the Biden administration to hike the tariff to 35% on Russian ferrosilicon that contains 75% silicon, the same rate as is applied to the other four categories of silicon and iron alloy coming from Russia. The senators said in their Jan. 31 letter that this category accounts for most Russian ferrosilicon exports to the U.S. The aim is to "replace Russian imports that finance the country’s illegal invasion of Ukraine."

Fourteen Republican senators, led by Florida's Sen. Marco Rubio, wrote to the treasury secretary and secretary of state as the Cabinet officials traveled to China to meet with President Xi Jinping.

Four Republicans and two Democrats reintroduced the American Beef Labeling Act in the Senate, a bill that would direct the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to develop a World Trade Organization-compliant way to reinstate mandatory country of origin labeling for beef.

Four Republican senators introduced a bill to strip China of Permanent Normal Trade Relations status, requiring the president annually to consider China's eligibility under the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. The bill would expand that amendment, adding human rights and trade abuses as factors making a country ineligible for most favored nation tariffs. The bill was introduced by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; Rick Scott, R-Fla.; J.D. Vance, R-Ohio; and Ted Budd, R-N.C.