Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., and 20 other members of the House of Representatives, mostly from the Midwest, asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to make the ethanol export market in Brazil a priority, because Brazil has both non-tariff barriers and tariffs on U.S. ethanol exports.
A joint letter from U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to the Senate Finance Committee chairman defended their efforts to engage with Congress as they negotiate the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
As part of the phase one trade agreement, China agreed to allow imports of chicken on a state-by-state basis after avian influenza cases, as long as 90 days had passed since the last case, and disinfection protocols had been completed.
The Commerce Department should use the Entity List and potentially its anti-boycott regulations to respond to Beijning’s restrictions on U.S. chip company Micron (see 2305220053 and 2305240002), Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., said in a June 1 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The lawmakers said it’s time for the U.S. and its partners to “firmly push back” on China’s “economic coercion, adding that it "can no longer sit on the sidelines as the [People’s Republic of China] selectively targets U.S. and allied entities with the goal of intimidating our businesses and harming our economic security.”
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-Minn., and 62 other Republican members, including Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to open a formal dispute under USMCA over Mexico's treatment of biotech corn imports.
Lawmakers this week previewed two bills that could expand U.S. export controls, including one that could require the U.S. to impose new license requirements on certain data exports and another that would require the administration to create a tool to counter economic coercion.
A bipartisan bill recently introduced in the Senate could expand sanctions against China for human rights abuses against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province. The Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act, introduced by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., could revise the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 by expanding the types of sanctionable activities and requiring the president to consider sanctions against foreign people or companies that knowingly provide “significant goods, services, or technology” to people sanctioned under the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act.
The Commerce Department needs to answer for its promotion of “dangerous surveillance technology” in foreign markets and the steps it’s taking to make sure the technology isn’t being used to violate human rights, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a letter last week to the agency and its International Trade Administration. Wyden said the ITA confirmed to him last year that it “provides assistance to companies selling such technologies, including to foreign governments,” but the agency declined to provide details about those activities, citing “unspecified potential legal barriers.”
The chair of the House Financial Services Committee is asking the Treasury Department for more information about potential outbound investment restrictions in China, including what types of investments in specific technologies would be targeted, whether the Biden administration plans to establish the regime through a national emergency and if the restrictions would be more effective than traditional trade restrictions. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., is concerned outbound investment restrictions “would prove futile,” the lawmaker’s news release said, and would “further serve” China’s goal of “limiting the influence of Western firms in Chinese markets.”
House Ways and Means Committee Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., and Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., introduced the Undertaking Negotiations on Investment and Trade for Economic Dynamism (United) Act, a bill that directs the administration to begin negotiations for a comprehensive free trade agreement within 180 days of passage.