The International Trade Commission published notices in the Nov. 21 Federal Register on the following AD/CVD injury, Section 337 patent or other trade proceedings (any notices that warrant a more detailed summary will be in another ITT article):
USMCA
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement is a free trade agreement between the three countries, also known as CUSMA in Canada and T-MEC in Mexico. Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2020, the agreement contains a unique sunset provision where, after six years (in 2026), any of the three parties may decide not to continue the agreement in its current form and begin a period of up to 10 years where USMCA provisions may be renegotiated.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is inviting comments on how USMCA is working in the automotive goods arena, "including the implementation and enforcement of the USMCA rules of origin for automotive goods" and whether the accord's automotive provisions "are effective in light of technological and production advances." Comments can be submitted through Jan. 17 in docket number USTR-2023-0013.
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) for CBP will next meet Dec. 13 remotely and in Washington, D.C., CBP said in a notice. Comments are due in writing by Dec. 8.
The U.S. has asked Mexico to investigate whether there were coercive statements that interfered with worker rights at the Autoliv Steering Wheels Mexico facility in El Marqués. The U.S. also alleges there were workers fired in retaliation for union activity, and that union organizers weren't given access to the factory.
Three-quarters of the Republican majority on the House Ways and Means Committee, along with five committee Democrats, told the U.S. trade representative that they oppose her "decision to abandon important bipartisan digital trade proposals at the World Trade Organization (WTO). This action, which was made without sufficient consultation with Congress, runs counter to the interests of American workers and businesses of all sizes and cedes more leverage to other foreign powers, including the Peoples’ Republic of China, that seek to write the rules of the 21st-century digital economy. We urge the administration to reconsider its approach."
The White House said it will ask the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to "pursue effective and meaningful remediation of labor rights violations or to address gaps in labor rights protections," and asked USTR and the Department of Labor to develop new tools and strategies to address these gaps.
The Senate Finance Committee chairman, joined by four Republicans and three other Democrats, asked the head of CBP to prioritize Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement and USMCA textile enforcement in the coming year, saying that American textile mills that are closing have said a key factor in weak demand for their yarns or fabric is "lack of effective customs enforcement."
The trade pillar of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which already was being criticized for not being ambitious enough, is not going to be finished as quickly as the pillars run by the Commerce Department on tax and corruption, supply chains and climate, the administration acknowledged as Asian leaders meet in San Francisco.
Suppliers are not really focusing on finding forced labor violations past a Tier 2 level, Pierfilippo Natta, KPMG's manager of Trade and Customs, said at a KPMG webinar Nov. 9. The survey that revealed that found 68% of companies surveyed only focused on supplier activity in Tier 1 and Tier 2, Natta said, while only 22% of those surveyed focused on Tier 3 and 19% on Tier 4.
A White House adviser on international economics praised the Americas Act, a bill that proposes adding more countries to USMCA, subsidizing business moves away from China to the Western Hemisphere, and lowering U.S. de minimis levels to pay for it.