Jacob Kopnick

A group of 25 senators led by Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, urged the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to conclude a new U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA) that will limit Canadian lumber exports to an agreed-upon U.S. market share, adding that Canadian imports “are capturing an ever larger market share,” which seriously imperils U.S. mills, workers and communities. In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman (here), the senators said only a long-term agreement would materialize into anything impactful. “The now-expired 2006 trade agreement became an ineffective framework for managing subsidized Canadian lumber trade as market realities changed since that agreement was put in place,” the letter says. “A truly durable solution cannot be based on an outmoded framework that does not offset the harmful effects of subsidized Canadian lumber in impaired or unfairly traded imports.”

The U.S. amended a request for World Trade Organization consultations it filed last week, adding chromium to its list of raw materials subject to contested Chinese export duties and a new section on Chinese export quotas for antimony, indium, magnesia, talc and tin, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a statement. Vital U.S. sectors use those elements to make aerospace, automotive, construction and electronics products, it said. China’s duties and quotas advantage Chinese industries at the expense of U.S. companies, USTR said. “The restraints we challenged last week, along with the ones we have included today, are part and parcel of the same troubling policy – one that provides advantages for China in important manufacturing sectors at the expense of the rest of the world,” U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a statement.

The U.S. is requesting World Trade Organization consultations over Chinese export duties on 21 tariff lines related to the raw materials antimony, cobalt, copper, graphite, lead, magnesia, talc, tantalum and tin, for which Beijing charges 5 percent to 20 percent ad valorem rates, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman announced (here). The duties hurt U.S. chemical, steel and automotive sectors, to name a few, make the materials more expensive for downstream U.S. manufacturers, and encourage U.S. and other non-Chinese producers to move production to China, Froman’s office said. China committed to erase export duties for all products except those listed in a specific annex upon its accession to the WTO, USTR said. Vice President Joe Biden is addressing the issue during a speech at the Port of San Diego July 13.

Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Deputy Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organization Christopher Wilson commended Zambia for its reform efforts and its 6.6 percent rate of economic growth since 2009, but urged the country to better utilize its benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act during WTO’s Trade Policy Review of Zambia, USTR said (here).

The U.S. and Uruguay on May 11 convened the seventh meeting of the bilateral Trade and Investment Council in Montevideo under the U.S.-Uruguay Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative John Melle met with Uruguayan Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Luis Cancela Gomez, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a press release. Melle and Gomez discussed issues including trade facilitation, improving opportunities for small and medium enterprises, the digital economy, and market access, USTR said. The next meeting will be held in Washington next year.

The U.S. is claiming that China’s antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of U.S. broiler chickens violate World Trade Organization rules, and plans to file an associated challenge through the multilateral body, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said (here). “These duties, which act as high taxes on American poultry exports to China, have remained despite a WTO report that previously found China to be breaching its WTO obligations,” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a statement. “Now, the United States is challenging these taxes on behalf of American poultry producers and the hundreds of thousands of people employed in the poultry industry.” This is the 12th WTO case the Obama administration has brought against China, said the statement.

Composed of officials from both countries, the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement Joint Committee met on May 3 to review implementation of the deal, as well as efforts to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (here). Pertaining to the bilateral deal, the two sides discussed functionality related to specific goods, services, and investment issues, and ways to promote expansion of trade and investment between the two countries, USTR said.

While Obama administration officials have acknowledged House Republicans’ concerns with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, some GOP lawmakers are frustrated with the lack of “solid” executive branch proposals to resolve their hang-ups about the deal, Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Dave Reichert, R-Wash., said in an interview with International Trade Today on April 18. He and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, are discussing whether to hold a hearing on TPP, in part, as an attempt to underscore members’ concerns and to get more substantive answers to them, Reichert said. “But sometimes…hearings can do just the opposite,” Reichert said. “It’s been a consideration, but there’s been no decision.”

The U.S. and European are “accelerating” negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, as U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom have met several times in the past few weeks to that end, according to a USTR official. Froman and Malmstrom have met regularly outside of formal negotiating rounds to advance “some of the more challenging aspects” of negotiations, namely, regulatory issues, the official said. USTR provided the EU with proposed language meant to “inject … transparency and opportunity” in a way that seeks to resolve regulatory divergences, he said. USTR’s overall TTIP goal for the “next few months” is to fill any holes with regard to regulatory practices and cooperation, as well as technical regulations, “reserving the more sensitive areas for end of the year,” the official said. USTR and EU are still working to conclude negotiations of the deal by the end of 2016, he said.

The U.S.-Tunisia Trade and Investment Council held its sixth session on March 22 in Washington to explore ways to boost trade and investment between the two countries, including greater Tunisian use of the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said (here). The Tunisian delegation indicated its intent to ratify the World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement by the end of the year and its plans to become an observer to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, USTR said. The two parties plan to meet in Tunis in 2017 to assess progress on their bilateral initiatives. Tunisia is a leading exporter of olive oil and dates to the U.S. under GSP, but some of those dates under subheading 0804.10.60 are set to lose GSP eligibility on July 1 absent a presidential waiver (see 1602290031), as competitive needs limitation (CNL) waivers on that subheading were pending as of Feb. 23. USTR didn't comment.