Countries that do not guarantee women's equal protection under the law, protect women from discrimination in hiring, or stop violence and sexual harassment at work should not be able to export products duty free under the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said. Their bill, introduced June 18, would amend the GSP program with these conditions (see 2006230053).
Most senators' questions to Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan at a Homeland Security Committee hearing June 25 were on immigration, but Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., asked him what the agency can do to stop counterfeit goods from coming in from China. Morgan said CBP is working to not just “come up with new policies, but also new techniques and new processes to help us identify and stop goods from coming into this country.”
As part of a resolution on banking regulations, the House of Representatives voted June 25 to block a resolution that Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., proposed, that the U.S. withdraw from the World Trade Organization (see 2005130062).
Of the 52,746 exclusion requests related to Section 301 tariffs, 75.4% have been denied, and 12.3% are still under review, a new Congressional Research Service report says. Because most exclusions are for specific products, and don't cover an entire Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading number, it's not possible to know how much trade is covered by the exclusions, CRS said. The report noted that some Congress members complain about the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative picking winners and losers, while others feel any exclusion undermines the ability of Section 301 to address China's unfair trade practices.
Rep. Xochitl Torres-Small, D-N.M., and Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, introduced a bill June 8 that would extend the limits on importing Russian uranium.
Lawmakers should act quickly to renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program before it expires at the end of 2020, more than 200 companies and trade associations said in a June 16 letter to the leaders of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees. “Further uncertainty about whether companies will have to pay millions of dollars a day in new taxes in January 2021 is the last thing the American business community needs,” they said.
China could and should be buying more U.S. products, according to a letter Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., sent to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, asking him what he's intending to do about it. Scott cited research from the Peterson Institute for International Economics that shows China, through April 2020, has purchased roughly 45 percent of what it promised, if purchases were to build at the same pace through the remainder of this year.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., named two labor activists to the Independent Mexico Labor Expert Board: Cathy Feingold, director of the AFL-CIO international department, and Fred Ross, founder of Neighbor to Neighbor, a grassroots labor rights advocacy group. The 12-member board, established under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, will monitor Mexico's implementation of its labor law revisions. The Senate and House majority and minority leaders will each appoint two members, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's Labor Advisory Committee will select four. Members serve six-year terms.
Rep. Suzan DelBene, a House Ways and Means Committee member who also leads on trade in the New Democrats, said she's worried that the participation of “so many countries” at the World Trade Organization in e-commerce talks -- including China -- will mean that the result will not be a high-standard agreement.
The International Trade Commission is recommending that 2,632 petitions be included in a Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, and 805 petitions be rejected. Another 42 petitions were ineligible for a decision, either because they were incomplete, or because of the company that submitted them. The vast majority of products that will receive tariff reductions, if Congress passes the MTB, are chemicals, though more than 700 categories of machinery or tools are also covered; some consumer goods, such as shoes, coats, hats and belts, are also covered. Those goods, along with textiles for a U.S.-based mill, accounted for more than 500 petitions. The ITC has sent the preliminary report to Congress, it announced June 9. It's soliciting comments on the 805 rejections, starting June 12 at 8:45 a.m. and ending June 22 at 5:15 p.m., through an online portal.