Three Democratic senators wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, asking it to do a better job of enforcing its "Made in the USA" standards. "In the cases of Nectar Sleep, Sandpiper/PiperGear USA, and Patriot Puck specifically, we are concerned that the Commission chose to forgo financial penalties and did not require admissions of guilt," they wrote. "In all three instances, the companies brazenly and fraudulently affixed 'Made in the USA' labels to foreign-made products, most of which were imported from China." The three companies settled with the FTC in September, but did not admit guilt. Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote: "If the consequences of misusing the 'Made in the USA' label do not include paying fines or admitting wrongdoing, it is unlikely that bad actors [such as these] will be deterred from using the same deceptive tactics to sell their products in the future."
An additional 10 percent tariff on primary aluminum may be responsible for a 3 percent cost increase for the metal, according to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, but the "price effect is still unclear." Members of Congress asked if the tariffs would serve their stated purpose of increasing employment at primary aluminum smelters, and the CRS doesn't say much about that, just noting that Century Aluminum restarted a smelter in Hawesville, Kentucky, and Magnitude 7 Metals restarted limited production, while Alcoa, the largest domestic producer, has not added any capacity. The Oct. 9 report said the cost of electricity in the U.S., rather than competition from imports, is the most likely culprit for the decline in virgin aluminum smelting. Primary aluminum smelting produced 741,000 metric tons in 2017, down from 2.6 million metric tons 10 years earlier. Canada, which has cheap hydroelectric power in Quebec, accounts for half of U.S. imports of the metal.
America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 (S. 3021), which would provide funding for navigation and dredging improvements at ports around the country, passed the Senate 99-1 Oct. 10 and goes to the president's desk for signing. The bill, which also would begin feasibility studies for dozens of flood control and dredging projects, provides funding to improve navigation in southeast Arkansas; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and in Seattle's Harbor, as well as to extend the Galveston, Texas, harbor channel. Across all those projects, the cost would be nearly $300 million.
A bill that would require advance data from all international mail by 2020 -- designed to help CBP interdict small-scale fentanyl and carfentanil shipments, particularly from China -- is headed to the president's desk after the Senate voted 98-1 on Oct. 3 to approve the conference report of a package of bills that attacked the opioid epidemic from many angles.
A South Florida Republican has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would allow a majority of produce growers in Florida and Georgia to bring an antidumping case against Mexican imports of the same product during the season when the fruit or vegetable is grown in both places. The proposal was dropped during NAFTA negotiations, and Sens. Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson introduced a bill (see 1809270037) saying Congress would act since the treaty does not address the issue. Rep. Carlos Curbelo and two other Florida lawmakers, one from each party, introduced the bill Oct. 2. The House is out on recess until after the November election. Unless the two bills were to pass both chambers before the end of the year, they will have to be introduced again next year.
A bill that would allow Congress to reject safeguard tariffs and Section 301 tariffs, and that would require congressional approval before Section 232 tariffs could go into effect was introduced in the House of Representatives Sept. 26. The bill, called the Promoting Responsible and Free Trade Act, has co-sponsors Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., and Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., who was defeated in a primary earlier this year, ostensibly in retaliation for being insufficiently loyal to Donald Trump.
Florida's bipartisan Senate delegation -- Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Bill Nelson -- introduced a bill that would allow trade remedy investigations to be raised for seasonal products. In a press release announcing the bill, S. 3510, Nelson said Florida growers of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, strawberries and blueberries "have been unable to fight back against Mexican trade abuses because U.S. law requires them to prove the abuse occurs year-round instead of just during the winter season when they make most of their sales." He said that NAFTA didn't make a change to antidumping laws, and so the two introduced the bill. “Enough is enough. Too many growers in Florida have been crippled by Mexican trade abuses,” Nelson said. “If the administration won’t fix this, Congress will.”
Lawmakers from states along the Northern Border expressed concern in a Sept. 26 letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer over comments "suggesting that your statutory obligations require an agreement to be signed imminently." There is "no such deadline" and "the timeline should not dictate the substance in such a vital negotiation," said Reps. Susan DelBene, D-Wash., Ron Kind, D-Wis., and Brian Higgins, D-N.Y. "We urge you to take all the time the Administration needs to get the NAFTA negotiation right with both Canada and Mexico rather than rush to meet artificially imposed deadlines at the expense of a good outcome," they said. It's also important that NAFTA talks result in "measurable and significant gains for U.S. dairy exports to Canada," the lawmakers said.
Customs brokers this week will be lobbying congressional leaders to press the Department of the Treasury and CBP to change the proposed rule that excludes excise taxes from drawback, and will be asking members to co-sponsor the Customs Business Fairness Act (see 1712180053). The act, H.R. 4657, would change bankruptcy law so that customs brokers are not subject to clawback on duties advanced to CBP after a client declares bankruptcy.
The Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing Sept. 26 to explore whether auto tariffs -- threatened by the Trump administration at 20 percent or 25 percent -- will help or hurt the domestic auto industry and the U.S. economy. A representative of the United Auto Workers and of Honda North America, along with leaders of a car dealership and a parts manufacturer and a politician from the South Carolina county where BMW has its largest plant in the world are all scheduled to testify. The hearing is at 10:30 a.m. EDT in 219 Dirksen.