Republicans who are in the China package negotiations say that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's tweet that said that moving even a smaller Build Back Better bill would halt negotiations was not an empty threat. He had said that while Congress was away from Washington, at the beginning of the month (see 2207010039).
An advocacy group for the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program showed that purchases of 25 products that were once covered by GSP have shifted back to China since the program's expiration.
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Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., who's been a defender of trade liberalization, introduced a bill that requires the Treasury Department, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the International Trade Commission to assess whether the Section 301 tariffs, Section 232 tariffs, safeguard tariffs and the expiration of the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program have contributed to inflation.
The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said he doesn't think the chatter among lobbyists that the trade title could be dropped from a compromise China package has any merit (see 2205310033). Lobbyists were reacting to a leaked timeline that said the negotiations should be finished, and the new legislative language done, by June 21. The House is scheduled to leave Washington for two weeks at the end of the day on June 24.
An aggressive timeline that aims to file a conference report by June 21 for the House and Senate China packages has lobbyists speculating that none of the proposals in the trade titles will be in the final bill because the two chambers are too far apart. The two chambers have relatively similar renewals of the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and a big difference in their renewals of the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill. Each chamber has proposals the other doesn't, such as directing the administration to reopen Section 301 exclusions (Senate only); changing antidumping and countervailing duty laws (House only); removing China's eligibility for de minimis benefits (House only); and renewing and expanding Trade Adjustment Assistance (House only).
As companies work to move assembly out of China so that the goods they export to the U.S. won't be hit with Section 301 tariffs, they have to grapple with the fact that CBP may still consider a good made in Mexico, Malaysia, Vietnam or elsewhere to be a product of China if enough of its innards were made in China.
A group of 54 members of the House led by Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., are asking leadership of both chambers to make changes to Competitive Need Limitations in the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program proposed by the pair in H.R. 6171 (see 2112100058).
The AFL-CIO told China bill conferees that renewing Trade Adjustment Assistance, making changes to trade remedies laws, creating outbound investment screening and removing Chinese exports from de minimis eligibility "should be included in any competitiveness package that purports to challenge China's increasing economic dominance."
Members of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee who spoke at the first meeting of that conference committee to find a compromise China competition package sounded more combative than cooperative.