Maria Pagan, the nominee to lead the U.S. mission at the World Trade Organization, told Senate Finance Committee members that reforming the appellate body is a top priority because "Appellate Body overreaching has shielded China’s non-market practices and hurt the interest of U.S. workers and businesses." She said that appellate body rulings "undermined our ability to protect U.S. workers and businesses from those non-market practices."
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Japan's trade minister and the European Union's trade commissioner said their staffs will be working to identify problems caused by non-market practices, to identify gaps in existing enforcement tools and to think about what work is needed to develop rules to address trade-distorting non-market practices. Japan, the EU and the U.S. will also discuss cooperating on using existing trade remedies. The three nations were supposed to have met on the sidelines of the World Trade Organization's 12th Ministerial Conference, but had to meet virtually because of its postponement (see 2111300028). Their joint statement also said that WTO reform is important.
Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young, who co-led the Endless Frontier bill with Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, said he hopes to learn more soon about when conferees might be named to negotiate a compromise between the House and the Senate approaches to a China package. "I'm supposed to huddle up with Sen. Schumer today. I need to approach him. I have not had an opportunity to personally chat with him about the state of things," Young said in a brief hallway interview Nov. 30.
After Switzerland banned flights from Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the World Trade Organization had to postpone the 12th Ministerial Conference that was due to start Nov. 30. A news release from Nov. 26 quoted Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala saying that the travel restrictions would have put delegations from Southern Africa at a disadvantage. "She pointed out that many delegations have long maintained that meeting virtually does not offer the kind of interaction necessary for holding complex negotiations on politically sensitive issues," the release said.
Perth USAsia Centre, a think tank that focuses on relationships between Australia, the U.S. and Asian countries, and the Asia Society Policy Institute say that while the World Trade Organization is not well-equipped to combat trade coercion, there are international approaches that could make the tactic more costly for perpetrators and help injured companies that are hurt by the coercion.
Trade was barely touched on during the virtual meeting of President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Anna Ashton, vice president of government affairs for the U.S.-China Business Council. Ashton, who was speaking on a Nov. 23 Twitter panel hosted by Neysun Mahboubi, a research scholar at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Contemporary China, said that follows a pattern in the administration. She said that "they are unabashedly reframing the relationship… as a competitive one," which makes her wonder where the commercial relationship fits in. The recent panel was reacting to the earlier video call (see 2111160004).
Nine liberal senators, led by Democrats Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont, want the U.S. to push Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the European Union to agree to an Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver at the World Trade Organization, so that COVID-19 vaccine production can accelerate in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Indian Trade Minister Piyush Goyal agreed to continue working to resolve outstanding trade issues "to reach convergence in the near future," according to a joint statement released Nov. 23 at the conclusion of the India-U.S. Trade Policy Forum (TPF) in New Delhi. Both countries discussed wanting better treatment of their exports. "India highlighted its interest in restoration of its beneficiary status under the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences program; the United States noted that this could be considered, as warranted, in relation to the eligibility criteria determined by the U.S. Congress."
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she hears frequently from stakeholders about "market access restrictions, high tariffs, unpredictable regulatory requirements, and restrictive digital trade measures" in India, and said those are issues "where we need to make progress."
The White House, in a blog post that noted some wins for easing port congestion, said Congress should provide the Federal Maritime Commission with "an updated toolbox to protect exporters, importers, and consumers from unfair practices." It said that the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, a bipartisan bill introduced in the House in August (see 2108100011), "includes good first steps towards the type of longer-term reform to shipping laws that would strengthen America’s global competitiveness."