The Biden administration's trade agenda should focus less on protectionism and more on traditional trade agreements, said a former treasury secretary and U.S. trade representative during a July 25 event hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
A group of retail trade groups, led by the American Apparel and Footwear Association, said that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative failed to adequately respond to comments when imposing its lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs on China. Submitting an amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the massive case against the duties, the retail representatives argued that USTR illegally relied on the president's discretion as a response to the comments, violating the Administrative Procedure Act (HMTX Industries, et al. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).
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Africa is a good location for producing labor-intensive apparel, The Children's Place's former chief supply chain and sourcing officer told an interagency committee tasked with considering countries' eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The committee, chaired by Jeremy Streatfeild, director of African Affairs at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, held an online public hearing on AGOA July 24.
A readout from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative after the latest round of talks between the trade representative and her EU counterpart on a steel and aluminum deal suggested she does not think the EU is thinking big enough. The U.S. and the EU are trying to agree on a system that would preference steel and aluminum made with a lower carbon footprint, and, at the same time, a system that would keep metals produced through non-market excess capacity out of their countries.
Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., have reintroduced a bill that would refund some tariffs paid to importers of goods that were hit with tariffs as a result of the Airbus dispute with the EU. The bill also would prohibit future actions by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative that would hike tariffs on goods already in transit -- unless the tariffs were on a nonmarket economy, such as China. The bill would require USTR to set an effective date for the tariff hike no sooner than 60 days from the publication of the target list.
The House Select Committee on China, having heard from witnesses advocating a punitive approach to Chinese trade and investment (see 2305180064), asked to hear from advocates for both that approach and a more moderate one in a debate on Capitol Hill.
The Biden administration will complete its review of the Section 301 tariffs "this fall," U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai wrote to senators, and while she did not commit to any course of action, she wrote: "As part of the 4-Year Review of the Section 301 tariffs, USTR is reviewing the effectiveness of the tariffs in achieving the objectives of the investigation, as well as the effect of the tariffs on consumers, workers, and the U.S. economy at large. As part of this review, we are considering the existing tariffs structure and how to make the tariffs more strategic in light of impacts on sectors of the U.S. economy as well [as] the goal of increasing domestic manufacturing."
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is setting FY 2024 country allocations for imports under tariff-rate quotas for cane sugar and refined sugars. The FY 2024 import TRQ for raw cane sugar was established at 1,117,195 metric tons raw value (MTRV), the minimum amount to which the U.S. is committed under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Uruguay Round Agreements (see 2307050038). The USTR now allocates this TRQ among supplying countries and customs areas, as follows:
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is amending two exclusions from Section 301 tariffs to conform the tariff numbers in the descriptions of the exclusions to recent tariff schedule changes, it said in a notice. The affected exclusions are found at U.S. Notes 20(ttt)(iii)(73) and 20(ttt)(iii)(74) to subchapter III of Chapter 99.