Learn from the lessons of the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership, warned trade skeptics Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, in a letter they and other signatories released publicly Aug. 2. They said binding commitments in either the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, or reached with Latin American partners, are not legal without congressional say-so. "The administration’s many public declarations about the proposed IPEF process seem to indicate that it plans to negotiate a binding agreement while circumventing congressional input, authority, and approval," they wrote.
Senate Finance Committee members praised the experience of Doug McKalip, the administration's nominee to be chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. McKalip, a senior adviser on international trade policy and other matters to the agriculture secretary, is a career staffer at USDA.
The House of Representatives passed a bill that offers tax credits and grants to semiconductor manufacturers and increases government spending on science research, on a 243-187 vote on July 28. Twenty-four Republicans voted for the bill. Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., voted present, as her family founded major chipmaker Qualcomm, which will benefit from the bill.
Trade groups that represent semiconductor manufacturers and customers lauded the Senate's passage of incentives for domestic manufacturing, while unions and a union-funded advocacy group both praised the bill and said trade provisions that were not included still need to pass.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he decided to vote against the slimmed-down China package, the U.S.Innovation and Competition Act, because it no longer includes the IMPORT Act, which would have expanded CBP authority to share information with rights holders on suspected counterfeit merchandise.
Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced a bill July 20 that would require 90% or more of commercial vehicles to go through non-intrusive inspection at ports of entry by the end of fiscal year 2024.
Although climate advocate Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has hopes of introducing a bipartisan carbon border adjustment tax, he said it may take American exports being hit with carbon border tariffs in Europe to get Congress to move.
Saying tariffs on Canadian lumber are adding to home building costs, Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and John Thune, R-S.D., asked Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to expedite the final determination on Canadian softwood lumber trade remedies.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said USMCA is crucial to the country's economic recovery from the pandemic "because it was developed with the future in mind."
As China has used economic coercion to punish countries such as Lithuania and Australia, senators are suggesting that the president could lower tariffs or quotas on countries' exports to the U.S. to ease the pain. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., introduced a bill that would give the president the authority to lower tariffs or modify quotas on imports from a country that is facing economic coercion to make up for lost exports, and to waive some policy requirements to facilitate export financing. Congress would have to be consulted on whether there is economic coercion and how to support the target of that coercion. The support would sunset after two years.