The INFORM Consumers Act passed out of the House Commerce Committee this week (see 2111050021). The bill aims to crack down on sellers of counterfeit goods and make it harder for shoplifting rings to sell the stolen goods online. E-commerce platforms would need to find out more information about their sellers, and there would have to be a way to submit complaints by consumers to sellers with a certain volume of sales. The Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade hailed the vote on Nov. 17, saying, “We urge the full House to vote on this important bipartisan bill as soon as possible," through the nonprofit's Director General Jeffrey Hardy. Hardy said INFORM Consumers "has unified retailers, consumer groups, leading online marketplaces, small online sellers, manufacturers and all those serious about stopping the sale of counterfeit and stolen goods online.”
The environmental and social spending bill that passed the House of Representatives includes $5 billion for "manufacturing supply chain resilience," for the Commerce Department. Commerce may spend the money on mapping and monitoring supply chains, supporting the establishment of voluntary standards and best practices, and "identifying, accelerating, promoting, demonstrating and deploying technological advances for manufacturing supply chains" and providing grants, loans or loan guarantees" to maintain and improve manufacturing supply chain resiliency." The bill also provides $600 million in grants for supply chain resilience, reduction in port congestion and the development of offshore wind. That money will be distributed by the Maritime Administration. Although the Build Back Better bill gives an additional $2 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for implementing the Seafood Import Monitoring Program, it does not authorize NOAA to expand SIMP to apply to all seafood products, a congressional staffer told International Trade Today. Originally, that money was dedicated to such an expansion.
The Senate Finance Committee approved the nominations of Chris Wilson for chief innovation and intellectual property negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on a 24-4 vote, and María Pagán to be a deputy USTR, who would lead the delegation to the World Trade Organization, 27-1. Both are longtime civil servants at USTR (see 2108110038).
Witnesses at a joint Energy and Environment and Climate Change subcommittees hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee told members that incentives to buy electric vehicles would spur domestic battery manufacturing; that financial support for battery recycling would allow domestic battery production to move away from problematic cobalt imports; and that Buy American rules are critical for supporting domestic factories.
Questions on irregular migration and the vetting of Afghan refugees dominated the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing hosting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Mayorkas also did not mention trade in his opening remarks. But Sen.Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., asked what the administration is doing to ameliorate "significant delays in the processing of inbound shipments" at the port of Savannah. "I'm very well aware of the challenge there," Mayorkas replied, and said that 24/7 operations is one step the administration has tried. Ossoff said he is glad that the administration accepted his request that the port receive approximately $8 million to "rapidly scale up its operations, establish some auxiliary shipping container areas, make greater use of inland ports, to support our efforts to expand capacity." He asked that DHS continue to "move as rapidly as possible" to help in the effort.
Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., along with 22 Democrats and Republicans from Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to press Indian government officials to lower their 36% tariffs on American pecans when she meets with them this week. "As you may know, American pecan producers have faced many challenges due to rising imports from Mexico, Chinese tariffs, natural disasters like Hurricane Michael, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Gaining access to new markets for pecans will help ease the pain while orchards are replanted and as we push China for full implementation of its obligations under the U.S.-China Economic and Trade Agreement," they wrote. They said that pecan production contributes $3.57 billion to the "economies of the 15 pecan producing states in the United States."
The Senate Finance Committee will have a hearing on the nominations of Maria “Marisa” Lago to be undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade and Lisa Wang for assistant secretary of Commerce on Nov. 16 at 10:15 a.m.
The Customs Modernization Act is a bit of a misnomer, a Sidley Austin advisory says, encouraging firms to tell Sen. Bill Cassidy's office that changes are needed to make it beneficial to importers. The discussion draft of the bill was released so that it wouldn't produce unintended consequences for importers or businesses that provide services to importers, the Louisiana Republican's spokesman said (see 2111030035).
Fifteen Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee are asking executives at 62 U.S. companies that import clothing from Haiti to ask their suppliers if they are complying with health insurance and social security contribution requirements. The letter -- led by Reps. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey and Terri Sewell of Alabama and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, and released to the public Nov. 8 -- says that independent reports found that 84% of factories are not making the required contributions, and some workers have died because they did not have insurance when they fell ill. "We write to you because your companies benefit from those trade programs and rely on Haitian employers and garment workers to create your products, and thus, you have a vested interest in and unique opportunity to help improve and strengthen U.S.-Haiti garment supply chains. As you know, U.S. trade policies have increasingly prioritized collaboration across supply chains to improve labor standards," they said. They asked executives to respond to the letter by Dec. 1. The companies included Calvin Klein, Carters, Cintas, Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, Jockey, Li & Fung, Reebok, Target and Walmart.
Rep. Suzan DelBene, chair of the generally pro-trade New Democrat Coalition, told a webinar audience that reaching an international agreement to lower tariffs on environmental goods and services would be good for U.S. companies, since the U.S. has lower tariffs on these goods than the European Union and China. She said that the European Union and China both export more environmental goods than the U.S. does.