Fourteen Republican senators, led by Florida's Sen. Marco Rubio, wrote to the treasury secretary and secretary of state as the Cabinet officials traveled to China to meet with President Xi Jinping.
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., introduced a bill directing the administration to impose sanctions on an Iraqi militia group, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, which he said conducted attacks against U.S. soldiers in Baghdad. The bill is called the Sanctioning Iranian-Backed Militia Terrorist Act.
Although those on the Senate Agriculture Committee hailed the 14% surge in agricultural exports in 2022, when the value reached an all-time high of $196 billion, a half-dozen senators pressed USDA Undersecretary of Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Alexis Taylor on Mexico's plan to block the import of genetically modified corn.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., is working on a bill to revise certain aspects of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, he said in a brief interview at the Capitol last week. There are a “lot of opportunities” under the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership that “we haven’t realized right now,” Gallagher said, adding that the ITAR “remains a barrier to cooperation with the Aussies and the Brits.” It “makes no sense to me,” he said.
A former undersecretary of Commerce now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Bill Reinsch, said there has been relatively little impact on chip companies and chipmaking equipment companies from export controls on sales to China announced last October (see 2210070049).
Two U.S. readouts of the meetings between deputies from the three USMCA countries focused on a multitude of irritants and concerns the U.S. has with Canada and Mexico but didn't mention talks on how to resolve the U.S. violation of USMCA in its interpretation of the auto rules of origin (see 2301110058). Mexico and Canada did not issue their own readouts.
The Combatting Global Corruption Act, a bill that would rank countries on their efforts to fight corruption, and would direct the State Department to evaluate whether the worst offenders should be subject to Magnitsky Act sanctions, was introduced this week in the Senate. It's the same bill that was introduced in early 2021 (see 2102120035).
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Chief Agricultural Negotiator Doug McKalip and U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Alexis Taylor, after meeting with Mexican officials over Mexico's plans to phase out the importation of genetically engineered crops, said they appreciate proposed modifications to the presidential decree. "However, these changes are not sufficient and Mexico’s proposed approach, which is not grounded in science, still threatens to disrupt billions of dollars in bilateral agricultural trade, cause serious economic harm to U.S. farmers and Mexican livestock producers, and stifle important innovations needed to help producers respond to pressing climate and food security challenges," they said.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she and U.K. Secretary of State for International Trade Kemi Badenoch talked about how to strengthen the U.S.-U.K. trade relationship, how to reform the World Trade Organization, and how to confront "the challenges posed by non-market economies."
U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Suzanne Clark, in her annual "State of American Business" speech Jan. 12, said that if the Biden administration fails to strike a balance on how to respond to China's economic posture, it "could undermine our security, our economy, our competitiveness, and our future."