Four senators and seven House members have introduced a bill in each chamber that would reauthorize the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act, a trade preferences program currently scheduled to expire in September 2020. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., co-sponsored the bill in the Senate. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., and Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, are leading the House bill. The program gives duty-free access to certain textile goods from 23 Caribbean countries if the textiles are made with U.S. yarns, fabrics and threads. The reauthorization would take the program through 2030. “I’m proud to co-sponsor this bill, which will reaffirm our nation’s commitment to developing deeper commercial and economic ties with Haiti and our other allies in the Caribbean, ” Rubio said in a Sept. 12 press release.
Four House Democrats and two Republicans whose states border Canada have introduced a companion bill to a Senate proposal (see 1909100015) to require minimum staffing of CBP officers at the Canadian border. Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., introduced the bill, H.R. 4276, Sept. 10, and was joined by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn, and Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich.
President Donald Trump has “overstepped his power” to impose Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods, “and our nation’s businesses and families are footing the bill,” Consumer Technology Association President Gary Shapiro said Sept. 11, urging Congress to “intervene” in the U.S.-China trade war. With fewer than 40 legislative days left this year, the House and Senate should hold hearings on S. 899 and H.R. 3477, Shapiro said. The bills would raise congressional oversight of the Trump administration’s Section 301 tariff actions, but have gone nowhere since being introduced months ago (see 1906250029). The legislation would “protect Americans from this seemingly endless trade war,” Shapiro said. “Congress has the power to review and should use its limited time left to investigate the scope and intent of the president’s misguided trade policy.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., whose state borders Canada, introduced a bill Sept. 9 that would establish minimum staffing of CBP officers along the Canadian border. He was joined on S. 2444 by the other New York senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as Vermont's Patrick Leahy and New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., is soliciting co-sponsors for a bill called Act for the Amazon Act, which would ban imports of Brazilian beef, soybeans, leather, timber, sugar, corn, pulp and paper and petroleum products, because he says they contribute to deforestation in the Amazon. The bill already has seven Democratic co-sponsors, and has not yet been introduced. DeFazio said the bill, if it became law, would also end some military and other aid to Brazil, and would prohibit the administration from negotiating a free trade agreement with Brazil unless Brazil acts to combat deforestation and intentional fires in the Amazon to clear land for agriculture.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., says Congress needs to counter trade-based money laundering, perhaps by directing federal agencies to track shipping manifests and financial information in real time. One-way trade-based money laundering happens when one party sells another party goods at an artificially low rate, and the receiving party is able to sell the goods for the true value, Cassidy's white paper said. Currently, he said, "There is no requirement that the information contained in the manifest match the information in the invoice."
Tax breaks under the Craft Beverage Modernization Act should be renewed before they expire this year, but in a way that eliminates a loophole that currently sees most savings go to large distillers, Adam Looney said in a Brookings Institution blog post. Currently, large distillers can transfer spirits to smaller producers or importers so that more of their spirits fall under the 100,000-gallon threshold for the low tax rate under CBMA. The law should be changed so that only the first 10,000 gallons from each producer or importer qualifies for the low rate, giving the law its intended effect of only cutting taxes for craft beverage producers, Looney said. Alternatively, the law could be changed to prevent free transfers between producers from qualifying for tax breaks, but that would not stop foreign producers from using multiple small importers to access low rates, he said.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the preview of the Japan trade agreement talked about at the G-7 may only be in principle so far, "but I think this Japanese agreement will give farmers some reason to smile." Grassley, who was speaking with reporters on a conference call Aug. 29, said the deal would give dairy producers, wheat farmers, beef and pork producers and ethanol producers better access to Japan's market in return for eliminating U.S. tariffs "on certain industrial products," and the tariffs on those products are already pretty low.
The Office of U.S. Trade Representative should strike olive oil from its list of retaliatory tariffs on the European Union, Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., and Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, and others said in an Aug. 21 letter to USTR Robert Lighthizer. That letter was circulated among lawmakers last month (see 1907240045). The USTR proposed new tariffs on EU goods in response to a World Trade Organization decision that found EU countries had improperly subsidized Airbus aircraft production (see 1904090031).
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expects Canada's Parliament to continue progress on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in the fall following October elections, he said in recently posted written responses to House Ways and Means Committee members following a June 19 hearing (see 1906190062). "The Trudeau government has begun necessary steps to ratify the USMCA in its Parliament and has stated that it plans to move forward on implementation in tandem with the United States," he said. "The Canadian Parliament has adjourned for the summer and is not expected to return before federal elections are held on October 21, 2019. We anticipate that Canada will take up the legislation once a new government is seated later this fall, and we are confident that the Parliament will vote in favor of the Agreement."