Although some observers thought the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's reaction to losing cases filed by Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and China at the World Trade Organization over its steel and aluminum tariffs marked a new era of rejecting the rules-based trading system, others who had served either in the WTO or the U.S. government said there was nothing too surprising about the U.S. reaction to its loss.
In a briefing to members of the European Parliament, the European Commission's top trade official, Valdis Dombrovskis, said he expects the negotiations with the U.S. over the discriminatory aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act to partially, but not fully, resolve EU concerns.
The World Trade Organization issued a series of four rulings Dec. 9 finding that the U.S. Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs set by President Donald Trump violated global trade rules. In the landmark rulings, a three-person panel found that the duties violated Articles I, II, XI and XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The dispute panel said the tariffs, which the Trump administration said were needed to maintain U.S. national security, were not "taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations," as mandated by Article XXI(b)(iii) of national security protections, so the duties violate the GATT.
A report from Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee in Congress said that while the Federal Reserve is doing the right thing to drive down inflation, Congress should act to remove Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, and Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum. "These 2018-2020 era tariffs are currently in effect on $280 billion of U.S. imports, imposing a $50 billion annual cost burden on U.S. producers and consumers that use imported goods. Estimates suggest that removing recently imposed tariffs on imports from China, steel and aluminum imports, and Canadian lumber imports could deliver a one-time inflation reduction of 1.3 percentage point," the report said. There is no mechanism for Congress to roll back the softwood lumber duties, as they are antidumping and countervailing duties. However, the U.S. used to lower the trade remedies when the cost of lumber rose above certain thresholds.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., is asking why tariffs on aluminum seem to be permanent fixtures at the same time that there's a pause on potential anti-circumvention duties on Southeast Asian solar panels.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of Oct. 3-9 and Oct. 10-16:
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., one of the leading voices in the Senate for free trade, was unable to get changes to the Section 232 statute into the must-pass defense bill that will be taken up during the lame duck session of Congress.
The 75 amendments that will be voted on as a package with the Senate's National Defense Authorization Act include the INFORM Consumers Act, a piece of legislation that shifts more responsibility to online marketplaces to root out counterfeit goods.
More than a dozen amendments involving trade have been proposed for the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill the Senate passes every year, and is expected to take up in a lame-duck session after the November election.
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