Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., launched the legislative process on June 23 to give approval for a conference on Customs Reauthorization with the House, McConnell said on the Senate floor. The conference isn't likely to tackle differences on trade remedy antidumping legislation after McConnell tacked the Senate's Leveling the Playing Field Act onto the trade preference package. The two sides are still poised, however, to try to reconcile differences over the PROTECT and ENFORCE Act, two provisions that deal with CBP investigations into duty evasion claims. Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., vowed in mid-May to send President Barack Obama a compromise Customs Reauthorization bill by the end of June (see 1505200025). McConnell's move toward conference, which involves filing cloture, prepares a cloture vote on the customs conference following passage of the preference package in the coming days, said Senate Democratic leadership on June 23. The Senate's HR-644 (here) and the House measure (here) share a range of similarities, such as a de minimis increase to $800.
Lawmakers introduced the following trade-related bill since International Trade Today's last legislative update:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a critical “instrument of leverage” to pressure changes to labor and other good governance laws in TPP countries such as Vietnam, said State Department official Tomasz Malinowski in testimony before a Senate foreign relations subcommittee on June 16. The Obama administration is committed to concluding TPP as quickly as possible, said Malinowski alongside another State official and an administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development. All three officials stressed the importance of TPP goals on trade facilitation and customs harmonization, as well. But TPP countries right now have a “sense of doubt” about whether the U.S. will deliver on TPP, said Malinowski. “If there’s no [Trade Promotion Authority], then these countries have far less reason to make, many times, the very painful and difficult choices we are asking them to make as a condition of eventually being in TPP,” he said. “They’re only going to take those painful steps, politically painful in many cases, if they know there is a realistic prospect at the end of the day that this is going to work out.”
The House passed a measure on June 16 to give Republican leadership six more weeks to consider Trade Adjustment Assistance. The Rules Committee approved that extension, which elapses on July 30, the night before as part of debate and voting rules for unrelated intelligence authorization legislation (see 1506160023). While only three Democrats supported the rules on the House floor, the legislation passed with 236 votes in total. Without the extension, Republican leadership's window to vote again on TAA would have expired on June 16 at the end of the legislative day. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, motioned to reconsider TAA following the June 12 defeat of that legislation, but that only provided two legislative days to take the vote up again.
Lawmakers introduced the following trade-related bills since International Trade Today's last legislative update:
Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, introduced legislation on June 11 to lift the embargo on Cuba and allow industry to “freely conduct business with the island nation,” those lawmakers said in a statement (here). The legislation, S-1543 (here), would repeal provisions in U.S. laws related to Cuba trade and diplomacy, including language in the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, the cornerstone of the embargo also referred to as Helms-Burton. The bill would also relieve financial institutions from restrictions in their dealings with Cuba, the lawmakers said. “By lifting the embargo and opening up the market for U.S. agricultural commodities, we will not only boost the U.S. economy but also help bring about reforms in the repressive Cuban government,” said Moran.
Lawmakers introduced the following trade-related bills since International Trade Today's last legislative update:
Correction: House Republican leadership is aiming to pass the Senate-approved Trade Promotion Authority and Trade Adjustment Assistance legislation in order to send the bills directly to President Barack Obama, said Mayer Brown senior trade advisor Warren Payne on June 10 (see 1506100025).
The House voted to pass country-of-origin labeling repeal legislation in a show of bipartisan support late on June 10. The 300-131 vote now sends the repeal bill, HR-2393 (here), to the Senate. No repeal bill has so far surfaced in that chamber, nor has the Senate Agriculture Committee announced a hearing on the issue.
House Republicans are misusing Customs Reauthorization legislation to advance more a “rigid ideological agenda” for Trade Promotion Authority, said House Ways and Means Chairman Sandy Levin, D-Mich., in a June 10 statement (here). Customs legislation is headed toward a legislative conference if the bill is passed on June 12 as expected.