The Biden administration is emphasizing the need to fight forced labor and exploitative labor conditions, as well as using trade to fight climate change, in the first Trade Agenda published since President Joe Biden took office.
The issuance of CBP withhold release orders is not always seen as helpful in other parts of the federal government, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released on March 1. The full report includes some criticism from within the government as being too heavy-handed at times. “For example, although State [Department] officials considered WROs to be helpful in raising awareness of forced labor issues, State officials also said that the issuance of WROs can be a 'sledgehammer-type' approach that may make it more difficult for other agencies, such as State and [the Department of Labor], to implement more collaborative or remediation-focused approaches to eliminate and prevent forced labor,” it said.
Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Chris Smith, R-N.J., led the reintroduction of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would create a rebuttable presumption that goods made in China's Xinjiang region are made with forced labor, and therefore banned from entry. Five other House members -- three Democrats and two Republicans -- also sponsored. In the news release announcing the Feb. 18 reintroduction, McGovern said, “We have watched in horror as the Chinese government first created, and then expanded a system of extrajudicial mass internment camps targeting Uyghurs and Muslim minorities.” The bill passed the House in the last Congress 406-3. This is a companion to the Senate bill introduced in January (see 2101290045).
Sen. Tom Cotton, one of the most prominent China hawks in Congress, thinks that the Bureau of Industry and Security is buried within an organization “hostile to the aggressive use of export controls,” and so it should be moved from the Commerce Department to the State Department, because, he says, that department puts national security first. Cotton, who has published a lengthy report on what he calls the economic long war with China, discussed his views during an online program at the Reagan Presidential Foundation on Feb. 18.
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) for CBP will next meet remotely on March 17, CBP said in a notice. Comments are due in writing by March 16.
Many expect trade policy under the Biden administration to be more worker-focused than consumer-focused, but many specifics remain undecided. “The jury is still out on what that pro-worker trade policy will look like in practice,” said Joshua Boswell, a lawyer at Crowell & Moring. Boswell spoke to a webinar audience Feb. 17 on the 2021 trade outlook and said such predictions don't tell you much about tariffs, free trade negotiations or trade remedies in and of themselves.
Board members and people who provide services to foreign-trade zones talked about what the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones should work on now that it lost the battle on USMCA rules of origin treatment for goods produced in those zones. “Now that provision’s back in the act, it’s going to be a real challenge,” said Melissa Irmen, chair of the NAFTZ board. The group wants to make sure a U.S.-United Kingdom free trade agreement doesn't prohibit goods made in FTZs from qualifying for rules of origin, as USMCA does. “They are concerned that the USMCA approach could be a precedent.”
CBP posted answers to set of frequently asked questions Feb. 12 about the withhold release order aimed at goods produced using forced labor in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The Jan. 13 WRO applies to cotton and tomato products produced in China’s Xinjiang province (see 2101130053). The FAQs add some more details for how CBP will be administering the regional WRO, which elicited some logistical questions, given the breadth of order and the number of goods it covers.
CBP posted answers to set of frequently asked questions Feb. 12 about the withhold release order aimed at goods produced using forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Jan. 13 WRO applies to cotton and tomato products produced in China’s Xinjiang province.
CBP's planned addition of partner government agency data functionality for foreign-trade zones (see 1702150037) has moved to the “back burner,” due to automation funding questions, said Jim Swanson, director of the Cargo and Security Controls Division, for Cargo and Conveyance Security, CBP Office of Field Operations. CBP has “reduced funds for programming this year and as a result we are working with retained funds and other funding, but we have our ongoing maintenance needs to continue to work, plus continuing changes that have to be programmed, and that comes out of the base budget for automation,” he said. “So we are not looking at taking on a lot of new causes this year unless they come with a funding package associated with it.” Swanson spoke Feb. 10 during a National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones virtual conference.