The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a bill to increase funding for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative by $6 million, more than 10%, and to increase funding for the Bureau of Industry and Security, which handles Section 232 action, by $20 million -- almost 10%.
U.S. retailers will move their supply chains out of Africa and into Asia should Congress not renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act or change the third-country fabric provision for the region, according to trade groups representing domestic U.S. apparel retailers.
The White House has nominated Julie Callahan, the assistant U.S. trade representative for agricultural affairs and commodity policy, to be chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Callahan previously held positions at the FDA and USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service.
Trade restrictions in pending Section 232 investigations for copper, lumber, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, critical minerals, heavy-duty trucks, commercial aircraft and engines, polysilicon and drones are a foregone conclusion, but "exactly what those trade measures will look like" has not been decided, Steptoe's Jeff Weiss said during a firm webinar.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative launched a Section 301 investigation on Brazilian policies that discriminate against American firms, naming these issues:
Former top trade negotiator Wendy Cutler, who, as a career employee in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative led on the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, said that South Korea can't make concessions to avoid 25% tariffs on its exports if the 25% Section 232 tariffs on autos and 50% tariffs on steel go unchanged in the deal.
President Donald Trump said the trade deal he and Indonesia's president reached will provide U.S. exporters "full access," access exporters never had.
Domestic shrimpers, crawfish harvesters and the Oregon Trawl Commission asked the U.S. trade representative to open a Section 301 investigation to address the unfair trade practice of using "banned veterinary drugs in farm-raised seafood production from China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam" for seafood exported to the U.S.
The chief negotiator for the EU told reporters in Brussels July 14 that his team had thought "we are very close to an agreement," though there were still "quite large gaps" on what the U.S. was offering and what the EU could accept on goods subject to national security tariffs, such as cars and steel, and, perhaps in the future, pharmaceuticals.
President Donald Trump on July 11 appeared to leave open the possibility that USMCA goods will remain exempt from a higher 35% tariff on Canada that he announced the previous day.