The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 28 - March 6:
Section 301 tariff exclusions
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has established an exclusion process for Section 301 tariffs on China. In a series of rounds since the tariffs took effect, importers have been able to request exclusions from the tariffs, as well as extensions to existing exclusions. Many exclusions have been allowed to expire, as well. Section 301 exclusions are applicable to all importers of a given good, which may be defined as an entire tariff schedule subheading or a subset of a subheading outlined in a written description.
The National Electrical Manufacturers Association is asking House and Senate leadership to "expeditiously advance" a compromise China package by resolving differences between the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) and the America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength (America Competes) Act.
China's lack of worker rights, weak environmental standards "and anticompetitive subsidies are the hallmarks of China’s artificial comparative advantage. It is an advantage that puts others out of business and violates any notion of fair competition," the annual trade policy agenda from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said, and the administration is looking to advance fair competition "through all available avenues," including coordinating with other countries, using existing trade agreements, or new tools, it said.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 21-27:
Sanctions, rather than additional tariffs, are the most likely result of political pressure to not look soft on China, Bank of America analysts Ethan Harris and Aditya Bhave predicted. The two wrote in a Feb. 18 note that it's not surprising that China did not purchase the volume of U.S. exports it promised, but "what's unusual is the lack of follow-through from either side so far, other than empty rhetoric."
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 31-Feb. 6:
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Almost half of the Senate's Republicans and a third of its Democrats are asking U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to open an exclusion process for all importers of Chinese goods covered by Section 301 tariffs, and to presumptively exclude any product of which nearly all the imports are coming from China. Lead authors Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., say that if importers haven't moved out of China after years of higher tariffs, that "suggests that moving these supply chains out of China is uniquely unlikely, and that our efforts to diversify production locales and reshore manufacturing would be better spent on other products."
The House passed its China package, the America Competes Act, on a nearly party-line vote, with one Democrat dissenting and one Republican voting for it. The America Competes Act and the Senate's U.S. Innovation and Competition Act both propose subsidizing American semiconductor manufacturing and both propose investing in science research to better counter China's play for technological dominance, but the House version spends far more money and includes some priorities that the Senate did not, such as $2 billion annually for climate change foreign assistance and a generous reauthorization of Trade Adjustment Assistance. The vote was 221-210.
Sandler Travis managing principal Nicole Bivens Collinson said that Sandler Travis is working with companies to develop comments to the federal government on how to implement the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (see 2201210031) because a lot of companies don't want their names on their comments. "We are creating an ad hoc coalition because I know a lot of companies don't want to go on record," partly "because they may be a global operation that has operations in China," she said, while speaking on a recent webinar hosted by the firm. China prohibits companies from adhering to foreign laws that negatively impact the country.