Leaders of the New Democrat Coalition, who traditionally vote for free trade deals, expressed their frustration that the U.S. trade representative is not telling them what is happening in NAFTA negotiations. At a press conference April 26, Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., Rep. Kendrick Meeks, D-N.Y., and Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., said they need to know where NAFTA is headed. "We're getting the sense more and more" that the administration intends to bring a rewritten NAFTA as a fait accompli, Kind said. "I would suggest their tactics are wrong and they shouldn't take these votes for granted," Larsen said.
The Senate committee in charge of health issues unanimously passed a bipartisan bill that upgrades the capacity of the Food and Drug Administration and CBP to inspect international mail, with the goal of curtailing illicit fentanyl imports. This was one of many planks in the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 (S. 2680), which does not yet have a House companion bill. The bill passed out of committee April 24. The CBP portion of the bill would verify testing equipment at ports of entry is interoperable, upgrade equipment to detect synthetic opioids at international mail facilities, make upgrades to labs that test imports, and make sure more officers and drug detection dogs are added at the agencies. Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said one of the bill’s provisions “clarifies that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is on the flagpole for destroying controlled substances found at the border, and would strengthen FDA’s authority to refuse admission of illegal drugs from bad actors.” The bill would ask the agencies to report on progress on interoperability and information sharing six months after the bill becomes law.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced his intention to introduce legislation to move marijuana off of Schedule I. Schumer, D-N.Y., in announcing his proposal April 20, said the federal government would still seek to stop shipments of marijuana into states where it is not legal.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer needs to tell his Mexican counterpart that a bill introduced in the Mexican Senate, if passed into law, "will have serious ramifications and negatively impact the effort to renegotiate NAFTA," 94 House Democrats said. The group sent a letter April 18 saying that the bill is implementing legislation for constitutional amendments that would change how labor law is enforced in Mexico. Lighthizer is meeting with Mexico's economy minister and Canada's foreign minister on April 19 and 20, and Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said April 18 that four more chapters of NAFTA should be closed shortly -- on energy, telecom, the environment and barriers to commerce. He said he expects NAFTA to be in the landing zone in two to three weeks, according to a Mexican media report. When Lighthizer testified in front of the House Ways and Means Committee last month, he agreed with Democrats that Mexico has not lived up to its labor standards under NAFTA, and that a secret ballot election for union representation is important (see 1803210044).
A senator from Louisiana has asked that Chinese shrimp and crawfish be added to a list of products targeted to compensate for Chinese violations of intellectual property rights. "Including crawfish and shrimp would provide a much needed economic boost to the Louisiana seafood industry," Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican, wrote in a letter April 17 to President Donald Trump. As Kennedy notes, the products are both subject to antidumping duties. So far, the products named as targets in the Section 301 investigation (see 1803220034) are largely manufacturing inputs, such as ball bearings and metals, or capital goods used by manufacturers. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is putting together a second list, of imports with twice the value of the first list, and it's unknown whether consumer goods such as food, toys or furniture would be on that list of $100 billion in goods.
House Ways and Means Committee Democrats sent a letter to the committee chairman April 17 complaining that they are not being kept in the loop about the NAFTA renegotiations by the executive branch, and saying that a public hearing should be held before an agreement in principle is announced. Another letter sent the same day from ranking member Richard Neal, D-Mass., and Subcommittee on Trade ranking member Bill Pascrell, D-N.J. said that "the Administration is currently signaling clear intentions to conclude the NAFTA negotiation in the very near term." The House Advisory Group on Negotiations, which by law should be "fully apprised of the negotiations," needs to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer "at this critical phase of the negotiations and before an agreement in principle is reached and announced by the Administration," they said. The advisory group last met in May 2017 with Lighthizer. They also asked Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, to hold a hearing with administration witnesses so they can conduct the necessary oversight of negotiations. Brady's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., visited a dairy cooperative in upstate New York to emphasize his desire that Canadians change their dairy supply management system as part of a NAFTA deal. Schumer, who traveled to Cayuga Milk Ingredients on April 16, said the cooperative lost $30 million in skim milk powder sales the day after Canada's Class 7 system was implemented. He also released a copy of a letter to the U.S. trade representative as part of the publicity around the event. In the letter, he said, "As I have expressed to you many times, I strongly believe that we should not miss this opportunity to protect our dairy producers from Canada’s recent predatory trade practices. ... This Class 7 system is likely a violation of Canada’s World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments, but addressing it quickly through NAFTA renegotiation is needed, rather than waiting for years for a WTO determination."
A bill updating export control procedures passed unanimously out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee after a hearing April 17. The last export control legislation expired in 2001, and the current export control regime has since operated under emergency powers.The bill instructs the administration to maintain a control list, to update it as emerging technologies evolve, and to adjust the level of control of items as conditions change. It also says the maximum fine in a civil case can be twice the value of the exports that were sold to a party that was ineligible to import those items, but if the value was less than $150,000, the maximum fine can be $300,000. In criminal cases, the maximum fine could be $1 million.
A bipartisan group of 59 House members asked the U.S. trade representative to make raising de minimis levels in NAFTA a chief negotiating priority. In a letter sent April 10, led by Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., and Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., they said that "simplifying, modernizing and expediting customs procedures will help facilitate the movements of low-value shipments across borders." The letter notes that the U.S. de minimis threshold is $800, while Mexico's is $50 and Canada's is $16. It's critical that the administration follow through in its efforts to convince Mexico and Canada to raise their thresholds to a comparable amount to the U.S. standard, the lawmakers said.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer should focus on securing “strong copyright provisions” in U.S. trade agreements because “robust” intellectual property protections are “essential to American innovation and economic growth,” Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., wrote to Lighthizer on April 13. “Without adequate global safeguards to combat the growing international incidence of counterfeit goods and intellectual property theft, the strength and vitality of America’s most creative and innovative sectors diminishes.” The USTR office didn't comment.