After the Supreme Court declined to hear a case about the constitutionality of Section 232 tariffs (see 2006220034), the director of the Cato Institute's trade policy studies center asked if there's any chance other cases could restrict the administration's power to levy tariffs on national security grounds. Gary Horlick, an attorney who was part of the team that brought the case the Supreme Court declined, noted there are cases still pending (see 2003260056 and 2007080055), but a fellow lawyer on the case, Don Cameron Jr., of Morris, Manning & Martin, said the chances are remote.
Democrats who worked to change the USMCA to make it palatable to their colleagues in the House of Representatives wrote to Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador about their concerns that abusive union practices are continuing, and they asked him to keep them updated on efforts to change the culture in his country.
Rep. Rick Larsen, one of the chairpersons of the New Democrats' trade task force, told the Washington International Trade Association that he thinks the U.S. has not gotten any benefit out of the Trump administration's trade war. When asked by International Trade Today if a Joe Biden administration would roll back the Section 301 tariffs, even if China does not give concessions on industrial subsidies or state-owned enterprises, Larsen said, “I think the next administration needs to reset where we are, how we’re going to approach this.”
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., want Congress to say on the record that belonging to the World Trade Organization has value, even as the U.S. seeks reforms to its system, including in dispute resolution and how developing countries are treated. Their resolution was introduced July 2.
The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and two Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee asked follow-up questions to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about the ethics of USTR officials soliciting consulting business on complying with rules of origin in the USMCA. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who asked Lighthizer about Bloomberg reports that revealed the consulting business (see 2006180029), sent the letter to USTR on July 1. Chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., sent his letter a week earlier.
A group of 160 companies and trade groups is asking Congress to urge the administration to bring back temporary duty deferral, and to lift all Section 301 tariffs, or at the very least, improve the percentage of exclusion approvals and extend them for a year.
Supply Chain resiliency was the topic of a House subcommittee hearing July 2, but the small business owners testifying said the larger problems were either a spike in demand beyond what their typical supply chain could deliver, or the cost of additional logistics and inventory storage because of the misalignment of production shutdowns around the world.
Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, asked White House trade adviser Peter Navarro to answer a series of questions related to former National Security Adviser John Bolton's assertion that President Donald Trump pleaded with China's president to buy more soybeans and wheat, so Trump could win re-election. He asked him to confirm the claim, and to say whether he was in all the meetings between Trump and the Chinese president that Bolton described. He asked for the answers by July 14.
More than 50 House Democrats, led by Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to raise the issue of a Mexican labor activist's arrest with his Mexican counterparts.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, celebrated the switchover from NAFTA to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement -- coming July 1 -- but also talked about a trade irritant with Canada and one with Mexico in a conference call with reporters June 30.