While it's not yet clear if Democrats and Republicans can agree on whether the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and Miscellaneous Tariff Bill will advance this month, House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., says he's not for the proposal to offer a partial refund while importers wait for GSP renewal. The preferences program will have been expired for two years if it does not get renewed this month. He said, "We had a nice conversation with [U.S. Trade Representative] Katherine Tai this morning. We know [renewal] should happen, and we hope it does."
Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Chris Coons, D-Del, laid out parameters of a trade package they hope to get passed in the next three weeks in Congress.
More than 250 importers, large and small, and 27 trade associations asked Congress to renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program this month, and if that can't be done, to pass a bill that would refund tariffs paid on GSP-eligible imports that entered between Jan. 1, 2021, and Aug. 31, 2022. The letter, sent Nov. 30, notes that tariffs that have been paid while the program has been expired is the highest amount ever, at more than $2 billion, and if GSP is not renewed, it will be the first time it was gone for a full two years. The last time GSP expired, at the end of 2017, it was less than four months before it returned; when it expired in 2013, it was gone almost two years (see 13080110).
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says "it’s critical that legislation to renew the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB) and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) not get lost in the shuffle" during the lame duck session, as Congress tries to find a way to pass funding for the federal government.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., whose party is all but certain to lose the majority in January, is still firm that what's holding up the renewal of two small tariff-cutting bills is Republican refusal to renew Trade Adjustment Assistance. The program, which offers retraining and extended unemployment for workers whose jobs were eliminated due to foreign competition, can no longer accept new applicants since it expired in July.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told reporters there is bipartisan support for renewing the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, but he elided the primary issue that has held up the two programs all year -- House Democrats' insistence Trade Adjustment Assistance be renewed at the same time. House Republicans oppose renewing TAA, saying there is no tariff-lowering agenda for U.S. exports at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (see 2209200068). Wyden spoke on a phone call Nov. 15.
Of all the outstanding trade policy options -- new trade promotion authority, requiring Section 301 exclusions, revisions to antidumping law and a customs modernization law -- the head of government relations at Flexport said he thinks customs modernization is the most likely to pass. "I think we are coming on the cusp of something," Darien Flowers said, and said he thinks a bill will be enacted before 2025. Flowers once worked for Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who is leading the bill, though more recently he served on the minority staff of the Senate Commerce Committee.
NEW YORK -- At the U.S. Fashion Industry Association trade conference, the group's Washington counsel said that he believes there's a high likelihood that the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill will be passed before Congress goes home in December. USFIA President Julia Hughes added that because some of the members who are retiring are pro-trade, and they recognize that sentiment is waning in Congress, "that's gonna be an impetus to do something during the lame duck. Whether they're successful or not, that's not clear yet."
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