Mara Lee

The International Trade Commission will begin an investigation into what barriers the United Kingdom has to small and medium businesses seeking to export from the United States. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer sent a letter Aug. 3 requesting that a report be reproduced no later than July 31, 2019. The letter said barriers could include burdensome customs procedures, low de minimis thresholds for duties or value added tax, arbitrary standards and lack of transparency on regulations. Lighthizer suggested the ITC consult its report from 2014 on similar barriers in the European Union.

The negotiating parties are close to agreement on an environment chapter in NAFTA, Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said after a negotiation session in Washington on Aug. 2. The Mexican team met again with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer for almost two hours Aug. 3, and Guajardo told reporters there's a very good probability the two sides can resolve key issues next week, Reuters reported.

The Coalition for a Prosperous America, whose chairman is Donald Trump ally Dan DiMicco, said the president should consider vetoing the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, the group said in a news release. The Senate unanimously last month (see 1807270003) and passed the House of Representatives 402-0 before that (see 1801170012). The MTB "has flown beneath the radar and is a holdover from the past," said DiMicco, who was a trade adviser to Trump during his presidential campaign, and is a former CEO of steel producer Nucor. "At precisely the moment when the president is tackling foreign trade cheating and trying to create leverage, Congress is again engaging in unilateral trade disarmament. This bill fails to consider that many of the products included could be manufactured in the US.”

The Commerce Department sharply raised countervailing duties against the Resolute Company's exports of Canadian uncoated groundwood paper, and lowered both the antidumping and countervailing duties against Catalyst, while leaving other companies' CVD rates largely unchanged.

Top trade officials from the U.S. and Colombia talked about digital trade and telecommunications, services, agricultural matters, intellectual property, textiles and apparel, and truck scrappage as they evaluated implementation and best use of the bilateral U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, first signed six years ago. "Officials also agreed to continue to work together to ensure effective implementation of, and compliance with, the trade in goods and services, customs, intellectual property rights, labor, and environment obligations of the Agreement," according to an Aug. 2 press release from the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The U.S. said progress has been made on Colombia's labor issues identified in a 2017 report, but work remains (see 1701120006).

Mexico's economy minister is meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Aug. 2, and analysts watching the renewed momentum between Mexico and the U.S. in NAFTA discussions see competing pressures on negotiators. On one side is the need to show results for its tariff hikes, on the other is a deep skepticism of trade deals, the observers said. A source close to the negotiations said Mexico and the U.S. are getting closer on reaching a deal on auto rules of origin -- and that Mexico appreciates the other areas where the U.S. is showing more flexibility.

Two Republicans and one Democrat introduced a bill in the Senate Aug. 1 that would stop a Section 232 tariff if majorities in both chambers don't want the tariff. Sen. Rob Portman, a former U.S. trade representative, is the author of the bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala. Portman had been working for weeks to sign up co-sponsors (see 1807130019).

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has been directed to consider levying a 25 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, according to senior administration officials who spoke with reporters Aug. 1. Because of the potential change in policy, parties will have an extension on filing requests to appear at the Aug. 20 hearing -- they now have until Aug. 13 -- and the comment period will be extended six days, to Sept. 5. "Obviously no final decision has been made" on the tariff rate, an official said. The USTR previously proposed a 10 percent tariff on the goods (see 1807110050).

A Senate effort to constrain the president's power on Section 232 tariffs was not weakened by the White House announcement last week that any tariffs on autos or auto parts would not go into effect against Europe (see 1807250031), Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said in a brief hallway interview July 31. Corker said senators were continuing to talk about his bill this week. He said when the announcement first came out, he was concerned that it could take the wind out of the sails of his bill. But, he said, as people have realized that nothing substantive was achieved in that meeting between President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (see 1807260026), interest in taking action remains.

If U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer intends to close a deal with Mexico and not Canada, he cannot get congressional approval for such a treaty without full consultation and explanation first, according to a letter sent to him by four Democrats on July 30. According to Lighthizer's testimony last week, he still intends to pursue a trilateral NAFTA, but to get the Mexico-U.S. side done first in order to bring pressure on Canada to compromise. The letter says a bilateral deal would be a "fundamentally different agreement" and "would present different economic opportunities on a different scale and require different trade-offs." The letter was led by Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., and included Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., former Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin, D-Mich., and Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y.