House Ways and Means Republicans are requesting the International Trade Commission investigate and report on factors that impact the global competitiveness of unwrought and wrought U.S. aluminum products, according to a Feb. 24 letter sent from committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, to ITC Chairwoman Meredith Broadbent (here). Led by Trade Subcommittee Chairman Dave Reichert, R-Wash., and committee Republicans Charles Boustany, La., Diane Black, Tenn., Tom Reed, N.Y., and Jason Smith, Mo., the request asks for an overview of U.S. and other major aluminum producing countries’ production capacities, capacity utilization, employment, wages, inventories, supply chains, domestic demand, and exports. Furthermore, the GOP congressmen seek information about trade flow through third countries, as well as a strengths-and-weaknesses evaluation to compare production and exports in the U.S. with other major producers, including factors like producer revenue and business costs, input prices and availability, energy costs, manufacturing technology, product innovation, and pricing. The committee requested ITC to provide its report to Congress by the end of June 2017.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and the General Services Administration on Feb. 19 announced $26.8 million in improvements to the Gateway of the Americas International Bridge, which spans across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas, to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico (here). The funding is part of an $88.8 million project which will also see the renovation of International Bridge 2 in Laredo. Work on the 70-year-old Gateway bridge, known as “International Bridge 1,” will include added cameras to monitor customs processing, and a reconfiguration of the main car inspection lanes, Cuellar said in a statement. Gateway renovations will take place between April 2016 and August 2017. Mexico-bound traffic is not expected to be affected.
Clarification: Several provisions in customs reauthorization legislation would go into effect 180 days following signature from President Barack Obama, while other provisions use different timing (see 1602110018). For example, the bill's increase to the de minimis limit would take effect 15 days after enactment.
Lawmakers recently introduced the following trade-related bills:
Akin Gump posted a summary of some of the major parts of customs reauthorization legislation (here) that was recently passed by Congress and is expected to be signed by President Barack Obama (see 1602120029). The summary includes sections on new penalties for customs brokers, changes to drawback procedures, intellectual property rights protections and information requirements for importers of record. The outline also includes information on potentially quickly moving changes to de minimis levels, which "shall apply with respect to articles entered, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after the 15th day after the date of the enactment."
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, shuffled his subcommittee leadership this week and named Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., as chair of the Border and Maritime Subcommittee, McCaul said in a statement (here). McSally replaces Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., who is retiring at the end of this Congress.
Majority leadership of Senate Finance and House Ways and Means are requesting that four federal agencies, including the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Treasury, provide information about every employee who has been “converted” from non-career to career positions, noting in letters to the agencies (here and here) that the issue is particularly important as the nation approaches election of a new president in November. Laws governing employee conversions from political to career positions are meant to prevent federal agencies from hiring employees for career positions based on political influence, Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, wrote in their letter. The lawmakers are requesting that for every converted employee, the agencies provide information to their committees by March 1. USTR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Congress should eliminate all tariffs on imports of finished products and inputs, and immediately slash all tariffs that generate less than $500,000 per year in federal government revenue, which is the threshold for miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB) requests, said Michael Needham, CEO of Heritage Action for America, on the RealClearPolitics website (here). While some might find the "economics controversial," the approach would “align neatly” with the customs reauthorization bill headed to President Barack Obama’s desk for signature, which includes language that calls for an end to a competitive disadvantage to U.S. manufacturers and consumers resulting from such duties (see 1512080030), Needham said.
House Ways and Means should request that the International Trade Commission investigate factors affecting the competitiveness of the U.S. aluminum industry, especially focusing on China’s increased capacity and production of aluminum over the last decade, the Congressional Aluminum Caucus said in a letter (here) to the committee’s chairman and ranking member. “U.S. aluminum producers are facing debilitating competitive conditions and the root causes need to be further understood,” the letter states. “Capacity and production increases in China, which has gone from producing 10 percent of global supply to more than 50 percent during the past 10 years, have contributed to the problematic situation for the U.S. industry.” Only Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committee can request an ITC investigation. The Congressional Aluminum Caucus made up of Reps. Suzan Delbene, D-Wash., Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, and Larry Bucshon, R-Ill.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control has not proposed any sanctions on European businesses that did business with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), because despite past evidence of dealings, those companies have “moved away” from those activities, Acting OFAC Director John Smith told lawmakers during a Feb. 11 full House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. “I have not seen evidence of European actors continuing to deal with the IRGC,” Smith said. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., pressed Smith for nearly two minutes about the amount of IRGC-related sanctions, and expressed skepticism about OFAC’s efforts to find entities that do business with sanctions designees. “The Treasury Department has announced that IRGC is a huge economic monolith,” he said. “You’ve only designated seven [entities], and there are a lot more firms, [but you] can’t find a single East Asian, South Asian or European business that’s doing business with them,” Sherman said as his time expired. In written testimony (here) for the hearing, Smith said secondary (non-nuclear-related) sanctions continue to be leveled against foreign entities who transact with the IRGC.