The U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement for how to remediate labor issues at a General Motors factory in Silao, Mexico, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a July 8 news release. The remediation plan is a result of the first use of “rapid response” provisions for addressing labor issues under USMCA (see 2105120007), the agency said in another release. “Reaching an agreement with Mexico on a remediation plan shows the USMCA’s potential to protect workers’ rights and the benefits of a worker-centered trade policy,” Tai said. “Fully implementing and enforcing the USMCA not only helps workers there, it also helps American workers by preventing trade from becoming a race to the bottom. Our agreements must be more than words on a page, and the United States will use every avenue to protect workers and ensure that Americans compete on a level playing field.”
Former U.S. trade officials are optimistic the Biden administration can revitalize a mini trade deal with India that was originally proposed under the Trump administration (see 2009010049). But they also said U.S. officials will likely look to add more provisions to any deal, including ones that address labor and climate issues.
Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade Chairman Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and ranking member Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, agree that the U.S. should be in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but the expert witnesses at the hearing they held June 22 showed no path to the U.S. reentering the agreement with the 11 countries that went on to seal the deal. This was despite agreement among most subcommittee members (though not Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio) and the witnesses that leaving TPP was a tactical mistake that leaves the U.S. at a trade and geopolitical disadvantage.
The Biden administration emphasized how reaching an agreement to end a 17-year-dispute over government subsidies to both Airbus and Boeing does more than just lift tariffs for at least five years. They see the most significant plank of the agreement as the one in which European Union countries agree to prevent foreign investments in the aerospace sector that are done to acquire technology or know-how, and to counter investments by European aerospace companies in China or other countries that are done in response to incentives or because the investments are a condition to sell in that market.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai told union members that steelworkers have faced unfair competition due to overcapacity, and that she'll be talking to her counterparts in Europe next week about how to create "new standards to combat the harmful industrial policies of China and other countries that undermine our ability to compete."
An amendment that will allow expanded information sharing from CBP on counterfeits, and which will renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, will be part of the China package expected to pass the week of June 8. The amendment, sponsored by Finance Committee ranking member Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, was modified slightly from its first introduction, when it failed to pass the filibuster threshold of 60 votes. This version, which passed with 91 votes on May 27, no longer expands a forced labor initiative on seafood to all seafood products.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the U.S. and Canada could not reach an agreement on the administration of Canada's dairy tariff rate quotas, so the dispute will be decided by a panel. At issue is the fact that Canada has reserved the large majority of TRQs for Canadian processors, which means that consumer goods produced in the U.S. like ice cream, cheese or yogurt face higher tariffs in Canada because very little of the TRQ is available to Canadian retailers. Even when it's not restricted to processors, the TRQs are reserved for distributors, which means American producers cannot pitch their goods at lower prices directly to retail chains.
A former U.S. trade representative and a former deputy national security adviser agree that companies that do business in China are stuck between a rock and a hard place, as they will anger China if they disavow abuses in Xinjiang or Hong Kong, but could break U.S. law if they make clothes with Xinjiang cotton.
In a joint statement, Canada's trade minister, Mexico's economy minister and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said they reviewed USMCA committee work, noting progress and offering “recommendations for future work to maintain progress.”
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, in her second day of testimony on Capitol Hill, heard again and again from members of Congress who are hearing from companies in their districts that they want Section 301 tariff exclusions back. She heard repeatedly that the 9% countervailing duties on Canadian lumber are making a bad situation worse. And she heard that the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill and Generalized System of Preferences benefits program should be renewed. On each topic, both Democrats and Republicans shared concerns, though on GSP, Republicans only spoke of the cost to importers, while Democrats worried about the effects of GSP on the eligible countries. Tai testified for more than four hours in front of the House Ways and Means Committee on May 13.