Statutory Interpretation

The Stopping Importation of Cybertronic Kid-like Obscenities (SICKO) Act will be introduced by Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., soon, according to a Dear Colleague letter seeking co-sponsors. The bill would ban the importation of child-styled sex dolls, and is the reintroduction of a bill former Rep. Dan Donovan, R-N.Y., called the CREEPER Act. That version passed by voice vote in the House last year, but did not get a vote in the Senate.

Twenty-five House members, led by former New Dems Chairman Jim Himes, D-Conn., asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer not to terminate India as a beneficiary under the Generalized System of Preferences program before a new government is seated in that country. India is in the midst of elections now. India could be terminated as early as May 4, since notice was given March 4. India is the top beneficiary of GSP, accounting for $5.6 billion of the program's $21.1 billion in imports last year, according to USTR. Almost 12 percent of India's exports to the U.S. are covered by GSP.

Calling the Section 232 exclusion process for steel and aluminum products "a master class in government inefficiency," Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross pointing out patterns of denials that she suspects mean the Commerce Department puts the burden of proof on requesters, not on the producers who object.

A NAFTA ratification advocate and a senior House Ways and Means Committee member who voted against CAFTA, the Korea and the Colombia free trade treaties agree -- the Mexican labor reform that passed earlier this week is a major advance for Mexican workers.

A bill was reintroduced that would require Congressional approval for any White-House initiated tariff change -- effectively curtailing future Section 201, 301 and Section 232 tariffs, as well as a not-yet-used authority to raise tariffs on all goods from a country where we run a trade deficit.

Washington state Democratic Rep. Suzan DelBene, who is for free trade, told U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that she's becoming increasingly concerned about his position on de minimis. "I was troubled to see that the report you sent to Congress identifying changes to U.S. law suggested that you would seek to amend the statute that sets the de minimis threshold in the United States," she wrote in a follow-up to his Ways and Means Committee appearance in February,. "Do you plan to include language in the draft [U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement] implementing legislation that would reduce the US de minimis threshold? If so, what specific changes will you seek?"

Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told the congressman who represents the port of Laredo that 225 of the 545 Customs officials temporarily redeployed have returned to their jobs processing trade shipments at U.S.-Mexico ports of entry. The workers had been moved from their regular posts to deal with an influx of Central American families entering the U.S. (see 1904090036).

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal April 28 that reiterated his often-expressed view that without the end of steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the new NAFTA will not be ratified. He wrote: "If these tariffs aren’t lifted, USMCA is dead. There is no appetite in Congress to debate USMCA with these tariffs in place." Mexico and Canada have placed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products, including agriculture, and Grassley said the Mexican tariffs on pork have lowered the value of each hog by $12.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., introduced a bill that, if it passed, would create a working group to evaluate the food safety threat posed by beef and poultry imported from Brazil. The working group would make recommendations to the Agriculture secretary on whether Brazilian beef and poultry exports to the U.S. should be banned.

Nine Democrats, led by Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, introduced a bill that would make it more difficult for trophy hunters to bring skins, tusks or other evidence of the spoils back to the United States. H.R. 2245, the CECIL Act, which stands for Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large Animal Trophies Act, is named after Cecil the Lion, an animal killed in a Zimbabwean national park in 2015. The bill would require the Interior secretary to evaluate whether the foreign country where the animal was hunted has a species management plan that "addresses existing threats to the species; provides a significant conservation benefit to the species; formally coordinates with neighboring countries; and "ensures that any take is sustainable and does not contribute to the species’ decline in either the short-term or long-term according to current population estimates derived through the use of the best available science."