Lawmakers recently introduced the following trade-related bills:
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., called for President Donald Trump to suspend current and future licenses for aircraft sales to commercial Iranian airlines until his administration comprehensively reviews their role in supporting Iran’s “illicit activity,” according to an April 10 letter (here). The U.S. should revoke authorizations and reinstate sanctions on Iranian airlines found guilty of using commercial aircraft for illicit military purposes -- including transporting troops, weapons and cash to rogue regimes and terrorist groups around the world -- until they stop such activities, the lawmakers said. Moreover, the Trump administration should prohibit U.S. companies from selling aircraft to Iran until the nation stops using commercial aircraft “to advance its terror campaign around the world,” the lawmakers said. Boeing recently confirmed it signed an agreement with Iran Aseman Airlines, which is headed by a “prominent and longtime member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the letter said.
Lawmakers recently introduced the following trade-related bills:
The border adjustment portion of the House GOP tax blueprint was the biggest concern among polled tax executives, according to the results of Miller & Chevalier Chartered’s and NFTC’s 2017 Tax Policy Forecast Survey (here). A total of 21.7 percent of responding executives said border adjustment was their most significant concern in the blueprint, while 20.9 percent said an insufficient proposed reduction of the statutory tax rate was their top concern. “This may not be surprising, considering that the border adjustment and the elimination of interest deductibility are the two proposals in the Blueprint that raise the most revenue,” the report says. “The question is whether the tax rate reduction will be large enough to make up for the tax increases resulting from these new revenue raisers.”
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) conflict minerals reporting requirements set in 2014 have had overall mixed results, witnesses told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee panel on April 5. Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., during a brief interview after the hearing, said his panel will consider whether any legislative action is needed to amend the legislation that created the reporting requirements. “The SEC is limited in scope in what they can do, and all the witnesses agree that a more comprehensive approach that involves governance by the [Democratic Republic of the Congo] is going to be necessary, but we realize the limitations of the current government in the DRC,” he said. “But we’ll consider” whether legislation is needed, he said.
A bipartisan group of senators and a slew of House Democrats wrote several different letters to President Donald Trump urging trade action during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping April 6 and 7 at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The top Republican and Democrat on both the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees signed a letter (here) calling on Trump to address alleged Chinese weak intellectual property protections, “non-scientific” regulatory barriers facing U.S. agricultural exports to China, currency intervention, non-compliance with World Trade Organization obligations, commodity overcapacities and policies that pick “state champions.”
The Senate Finance Committee postponed its vote scheduled for April 6 on whether to advance U.S. trade representative nominee Robert Lighthizer for full Senate consideration, a spokeswoman for the committee’s Republican majority said, citing scheduling conflicts among senators. The committee will consider the nomination sometime after a two-week spring break that will start when senators leave Capitol Hill on April 7, the spokeswoman said.
Members of the U.S. transportation industry on April 4 told a Senate Commerce Committee panel to continue the Transportation Department’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants program, which faces elimination in fiscal year 2018. Union Pacific CEO Lance Fritz and Port Newark Container Terminal CEO James Pelliccio told the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure to keep funding the program, and both touted the private sector’s contributions to the program, compared with other grants that usually require more public investment. President Donald Trump’s FY 2018 budget blueprint submitted to Congress on March 16 proposes to end the TIGER grants program (see 1703170037).
The Senate on April 4 voted to confirm Elaine Duke to serve as deputy homeland security secretary. The Senate Homeland Security Committee on March 15 voted to clear the nomination of Duke for floor consideration (see 1703150046). Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., in an April 3 statement (here) urged his Senate colleagues to support Duke's nomination, after she served in Department of Homeland Security leadership during the Bush and Obama administrations. The DHS deputy secretary has been heavily involved in managing the International Trade Data System through ACE in the past, chairing the Border Interagency Executive Committee (BIEC).
The Senate Finance Committee plans to consider whether to advance to the Senate floor the nomination of Robert Lighthizer to serve as U.S. trade representative at 9:30 a.m. on April 6, the committee said (here). In a brief interview on April 4, Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., continued to assert a legislative waiver is needed to exempt Lighthizer from legal requirements barring individuals who have represented foreign entities from serving as USTR or deputy USTR (see 1702070047). Wyden said his staff and the staff of committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, are "having conversations" on "how it might be possible to get the necessary waiver. Senate Democrats want Republicans to consider unrelated legislation in exchange for clearing the path for Lighthizer’s prospective confirmation (see 1702150047).