Former top officials in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative during the Trump and Biden administrations said there will be no return to a pre-Trumpian, pro-free trade philosophy, whether Joe Biden wins re-election this fall or Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025.
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.
Speakers on a Georgetown Law Center on Inclusive Trade and Development panel this week dismissed the possibility of the U.S. and China negotiating a compromise or agreement on guardrails for when it's appropriate to make trade or investment restrictions based on national security.
The Canadian Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise concluded that Dynasty Gold, a mining firm headquartered in British Columbia, allowed Uyghur labor transfers to its joint venture in Xinjiang during 2017-2020, and that such forced labor "may continue to persist" at the Hatu mine in Xinjiang.
The annual report on foreign trade barriers, which covers intellectual property, agricultural exports and e-commerce, as well as all other goods and services, highlighted non-tariff barriers to ag exports, such as sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures that are not based on science, burdensome facility registration requirements, and barriers to poultry in countries affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza that are not justified by the risk, in the U.S. view.
PHILADELPHIA -- While the intersection of trade and climate change isn't yet massive in terms of policy, a CBP green trade official noted that climate change is already affecting the transport of goods.
PHILADELPHIA -- The glacial pace of developing electronically submitted export manifests is finally picking up, participants on a CBP export modernization panel said, with Tom Pagano, outbound enforcement policy branch chief, saying "we're really close."
The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, even without its trade pillar completed, is moving toward implementation with the establishment of an IPEF Council that will meet annually. The council will consider proposals to negotiate new agreements, enhance trade or economic relations, or amend IPEF; consider other countries' interest in acceding to IPEF; and adopt its rules.
Twenty-two Republican senators -- including the top Republicans on the Senate Finance and Agriculture committees and one of the front-runners to replace Minority Leader Mitch McConnell -- argue that the "current sharp decline in U.S. agricultural exports is directly attributable to and exacerbated by an unambitious U.S. trade strategy that is failing to meaningfully expand market access or reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade."
House Republican conservatives introduced a bill to restrict outbound investment in Chinese tech companies, require the administration to impose sanctions "on entities knowingly engaging in a pattern of theft of American IP," and impose sanctions on "Chinese officials and entities until they have stopped the flow of deadly fentanyl, and we’ve determined that fentanyl overdoses/deaths have dropped by 98%." It also said the administration must sanction "Chinese apps that steal U.S. citizens’ data and protect personal health data from China."
Mexican Economy Secretary Raquel Buenrostro said in Mexico this week that if the U.S. reimposes 25% tariffs on Mexican steel exports over alleged surges, Mexico will retaliate. Mexico's steel exports are only 2.5% of the U.S. market, and U.S. steel exports are 14% of the Mexican market, so the U.S. has more to lose if Section 232 tariffs on Mexican steel return, she said.