A witness representing a nongovernmental organization focused on the environment called on the Senate Finance Committee to take up legislation that would ban imports of products that are made on illegally deforested land, including in the Amazon rainforest, at a committee hearing on cattle supply chains and Amazon deforestation June 22.
The House of Representatives passed a bill that signs off on the Biden administration's preliminary free trade agreement with Taiwan but is widely seen as a message to the White House that it has overstepped its authority by cutting out Congress.
Everett Eissenstat, a former White House and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative official, has joined Squire Patton as a partner in its Public Policy practice, the firm announced. Over his career, Eissenstat has served as deputy assistant to the president for international and economic affairs and deputy director of the National Economic Council. Before those tenures, Eissenstat worked as chief international trade counsel for the Senate Finance Committee and assistant USTR for the Americas.
The U.S. and Mexico have been consulting about U.S. complaints about favoritism to Mexican energy providers for 11 months, with no public movement toward a dispute settlement panel, and Karen Antebi, a former NAFTA negotiator, said she doesn't expect that to change in the next year.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments for the North American Competitiveness Committee, it said in a Federal Register notice. The focus areas include "expanding trilateral cooperation" on North American Workforce development issues, "establishing mechanisms for cooperation during emergency situations that affect North American trade flows, including by establishing a joint understanding of critical infrastructure priorities in North America," and any other "additional workstreams," USTR said. Comments are due July 17.
The U.S. invoked the rapid response labor mechanism for a lead, zinc and cooper mine owned by Grupo Mexico, the second time the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has used the USMCA tool outside the auto parts sector.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said advocates for free trade agreements who argue that 95% of customers are outside our borders are myopic.
The U.S. is trying to negotiate with Canada and Mexico on auto rules of origin details, rather than complying with a dispute settlement panel decision that originating supercore parts are considered 100% North American as you calculate the vehicle regional value content, according to the leader of the trade group that represents Detroit's Big Three automakers.
A bill that approves the Taiwan trade initiative, but says it cannot take effect until the administration submits an economic analysis of its effects and answers questions from Congress on implementation, passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee on a 42-0 vote.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is asking for comments on how to make sure trade benefits "underserved and marginalized communities" in the U.S., and how trade benefits marginalized communities in foreign countries that export to the U.S.