Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., Congressional-Executive Commission on China Co-Chairman Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and ranking member Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., asked the CEO of Universal Electronics to explain who authorized the hiring of transferred Uyghur laborers at its Chinese factories, what the daily reports to the police about those Uyghurs say, and what documentation the company has to back up its assertion that none of its Chinese factories use forced labor.

The co-chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and two prominent Republicans also on the commission asked the acting CBP commissioner if the agency has stopped imports under the Xinjiang cotton withhold release order from companies that have advertised that they use Xinjiang cotton. Their letter listed 38 companies, mostly Chinese brands, but also Hugo Boss, Asics and FILA. The letter had a footnote that said Hugo Boss said that a comment on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter supporting Xinjiang cotton was not authorized and was pulled down.

Eighteen of the 36 Texas representatives in the House and both of Texas's senators asked the new ambassador to Mexico to press Mexico to fulfill its promises on approving agricultural biotech products and to keep Mexico's oil industry open to foreign investors. In an Oct. 19 letter, they wrote: "Texas farmers and ranchers have long benefited from free trade with Mexico and Canada. The USMCA locked in key provisions for agriculture and includes state of the art rules on agricultural biotechnology. Rigorous enforcement of these important priorities is vital for Texas producers. Mexico remains the top destination for U.S. agricultural trade -- ensuring that Mexico abides by these commitments remains a top concern for the producers we represent. We also have raised these concerns directly with United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai. Proper implementation of the USMCA is a top priority and the U.S. must engage at all levels of government to ensure that the American people can reap the full benefits from this important trade agreement."

The Tariff Reform Coalition, which includes trade associations representing major metal consumers such as automakers, boat manufacturers, the beer industry and machinists, as well as exporters hurt by retaliatory tariffs, sent a letter to senators asking them to support the Section 232 tariff reform bill re-introduced this month by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Mark Warner, D-Va. The Oct. 19 letter, signed by 27 trade groups, said that the bill (see 2110050040) would ensure "that all national interests are taken into account prior to the imposition of tariffs or quotas. These interests were not properly weighed in the case of steel and aluminum and our industries are still reeling from the effects of these tariffs.... Invoking national security as a justification to protect a few industries, to the detriment of countless others, sets a bad example for the rest of the world and opens the door for other countries to take similar actions." They noted that if the bill becomes law, and then if Congress does not approve the steel and aluminum tariffs within 75 days, they would be repealed.

Senate Democrats would like to increase funding for CBP's Office of Trade by $10 million to better identify and prevent entry of goods made with forced labor, and an additional $10 million for trade enforcement, including the 21st Century Framework initiative, enforcement of safeguard and sections 232 and 301 tariffs, and going after online counterfeiting.

China has retaliated against various countries for political stances, most recently, against Australian wine and barley, and members of Congress would like a more formal approach to reacting to that coercion. So a group of lawmakers introduced the Countering China Economic Coercion Act in the House of Representatives. Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., and Rep. Anne Wagner, R-Mo., are the lead co-sponsors, and were joined by two other Republicans and three Democrats. Bera said in an Oct. 15 press release that the bill would "create an interagency taskforce to streamline U.S. tools and mechanisms for deterring and addressing Beijing’s economic coercion and expand cooperation with the private sector as well as U.S. allies and partners on this important matter."

Thirteen Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., wrote a letter asking U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to increase trade engagement with countries like Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, Ecuador and Colombia. The letter, sent Oct. 13, noted that while the U.S. is the biggest trading partner of Central American countries and Caribbean nations, China is the No. 1 trading partner off the continent for all but two countries in South America, and in many cases, such as Argentina, Chile and Brazil, their trade with China overshadows trade with their immediate neighbors. In South America, only Ecuador and Colombia buy and sell more to the U.S. than they do to China, and Colombia has a free trade agreement with the U.S.

Nineteen of the 25 House Ways and Means Democrats, led by Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., are asking U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to continue to push workers' rights at the World Trade Organization, in a letter sent Oct. 12. "[W]e write today to emphasize the importance of including labor and worker rights in the agenda. We support the Biden Administration’s focus on a worker-centered trade policy and were encouraged by the forced labor proposal proposed during the WTO fisheries subsidies negotiations. For far too long, labor issues have not been central to the work of the WTO despite clear indications of its prominence in the foundational legal text of the organization as well as Congress’ intent for the WTO to address labor and worker rights," they said. They also asked her to convince other countries to form a working group on labor standards.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., leads a group of progressive House members who blocked a vote on an infrastructure bill that would spend $17 billion on ports over 10 years. On a press call, she told reporters, "We must and we will achieve our goals of passing both (bills)," referring to the infrastructure bill that already passed the Senate, and a broader spending program that mostly addresses social, educational, health and climate spending. However, $3.5 billion of that broader "soft infrastructure" bill would also benefit ports as currently proposed, for electrifying port operations.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development announced Oct. 8 that it has reached an agreement on a global minimum tax, and a way for countries whose residents access digital services to collect taxes from the companies that provide those services, even if those companies have no local physical presence. These are known as Pillar One and Pillar Two in the OECD.