On March 17, 2011, the House Ways and Means Committee’s Trade Subcommittee held a hearing on the Colombia free trade agreement. One of the Administration's witnesses at the hearing noted that senior level U.S.-Colombia talks were being held from March 17-19 to try to resolve the Administration’s remaining concerns with the agreement.
The House Ways and Means Committee has posted its oversight plan for the 112th Congress (2011-2012)1. According to the Committee, the plan sets forth the oversight hearings and related activities that the Committee and its Trade and other Subcommittees plan to conduct during the 112th Congress.
On March 7, 2011, the European Commission proposed an update, called Omnibus I, to the way decisions on trade regulations are made in the European Union. The EC states that the change is part of its greater effort to reform EU decision-making procedures (the “comitology system) and would not amend the substance of its trade-related regulations.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for March 7 -- March 11, 2011 in case they were missed last week.
The Renew GSP Today blog, run by Coalition for GSP, a group of U.S. companies and associations that benefit from the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program, is calling on GSP importers to join their supporter list.
On March 9, 2011, U.S. Trade Representative Kirk testified before the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on the President’s 2011 trade agenda.
The European Union issued the following trade-related releases on March 9, 2011:
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for February 28 -- March 4, 2011 in case they were missed last week.
During the week of February 28, 2011, the Free and Fair Trade Act was introduced in both the House (H.R. 913) and Senate (S. 433). The Free and Fair Trade Act1 contains provisions to renew the Generalized System of Preferences Program and the Andean Trade Preferences Act/Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (both with retroactive provisions) and remove certain sleeping bags from GSP-eligibility.
The International Trade Commission has released the public version of its report on the likely impact of eliminating duty-free Generalized System of Preferences treatment for “non-down” sleeping bags from all countries and plastic tape from Indonesia. While the probable economic impact of eliminating GSP for these products is considered confidential and is stricken from this public version, it does note that U.S. imports of the subject sleeping bags declined by 35% during 2005 -- 20091 and that since GSP’s expiration, the U.S. sleeping bag producer petitioner has hired additional workers.