When asked how negotiations are going with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that as far as he's concerned, her actions are "exactly as you would hope she would be." He also said, "The speaker has been completely fair and above board." The ratification of the new NAFTA must begin in the House of Representatives, and although Lighthizer was testifying June 18 in the Senate, everyone in the room knows Pelosi has the most power to determine the trade deal's fate.
U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)
The U.S. cabinet level position that oversees trade negotiations with other countries. USTR is part of the Executive Office of the President. It also administers Section 301 tariffs.
Consumer Technology Association members have identified 139 “line items for technology sector products” they want removed from List 4 of the proposed Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, the association said in comments dated June 10 in docket USTR-2019-0004. “The annual import value from China of those items alone totals over $167 billion, over half of the entire value of the products on List 4,” CTA said.
Members of Congress are hoping that President Donald Trump won't follow through with his threat, but are also talking about how they might respond if he does impose 5 percent tariffs on all Mexican imports.
Although the Speaker of the House said the administration's decision to send over its Statement of Administrative Action and legal text of the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement was "not a positive step," some NAFTA watchers said this should not be seen as a sign that the administration is trying to force the speaker's hand and demand a vote before the August congressional recess.
Six weeks ago, the senior vice president of the U.S.-China Business Council believed the Trump administration's pressure was successfully empowering Chinese officials who believe in reforming China's capitalist/state-controlled hybrid economy. "I was pretty optimistic that we were, as a consequence, going to be able to say that the administration had achieved things that probably no previous administration had genuinely been able to achieve," Erin Ennis told an audience member at the Washington International Trade Association China trade panel May 29.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would like some help from the Senate to move the House toward ratifying the new NAFTA, he said while speaking at the Senate Republicans' lunch about prospects for ratification and the work he's doing to get a trade deal done with Japan. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Lighthizer told them to convince colleagues in the House to support it. "It was just cheerleading, 'rah, rah, sis boom bah,'" Kennedy complained. "I hope I'm wrong, but I don't understand why my colleagues think that Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi's going to agree to anything that will help the president. But I mean, I wish she would put the country first, but if you believe in watching what people do, not what they say, I'm not encouraged."
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson sidestepped questions at a Beijing news conference May 17 about media reports suggesting new U.S.-China trade talks are off the table for now. Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping “have maintained contact through various means,” the spokesperson said. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative didn’t comment. The U.S. and China “intend to continue further discussions,” a USTR notice in the Federal Register said, officially proposing the 25 percent Section 301 tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods not previously dutied. Requests to appear at public hearings on the proposed List 4 tariffs are due June 10 in docket USTR–2019–0004 at regulations.gov, and written comments are due June 17, the same day the hearings are set to begin. Post-hearing rebuttal comments are due seven days after the hearings end.
Smartphones are the largest of eight classifications of consumer technology products that would bear the biggest brunt of the 25 percent Section 301 tariffs proposed on $300 billion in imports not previously dutied during the U.S.-China trade war, according to the Consumer Technology Association’s top trade strategist. “The import values of the products that hit our members are massive,” emailed Vice President-International Trade Sage Chandler on May 14.
In a tweetstorm, President Donald Trump said trade talks with China are continuing in a "very congenial manner," but that there is "absolutely no need to rush" because with the tariff revenue, the U.S. can pay for infrastructure and health care, and purchase U.S. farm products that were once bought by China. He said those purchases would be shipped to "poor & starving countries in the form of humanitarian assistance. In the meantime we will continue to negotiate with China in the hopes that they do not again try to redo deal!"
House members that are leaders on trade, in the center and on the left, say that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is recognizing the ways he's going to need to change the new NAFTA to get Democratic votes, but it's not yet clear how far he'll be willing or able to go. Wisconsin's Rep. Ron Kind, a New Democrat and free trader, said in a hallway interview with International Trade Today May 10, "We're kind of at an impasse. They keep telling us there's no way they can open this up and tweak it, and make this minor adjustment and we're saying ... we haven't met a trade agreement yet where members of Congress weren't allowed to get our fingerprints on it a little bit, massage it here and there for it to get to 218 [votes]. So, until somewhat blinks on that front ... ."