The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will not open a portal for comments about the economic impact of Section 301 tariffs until Nov. 15 (see 2210120051), but it has now posted the questionnaire, which has a dozen pages of questions, and will allow commenters to target specific Harmonized Tariff Schedule codes.
The top trade official from the EU, European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, said the incentives for the green transition in the Inflation Reduction Act appear to discriminate against automotive, battery, renewables and energy-intensive businesses operating in the EU. "It will not be easy to fix it -- but fix it we must," he said during an Oct. 31 speech at the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Prague. He also said, "This is an issue of concern for many countries and businesses, which I have raised with our US partners over these past weeks, and it featured prominently in today's discussions."
Although President Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration tariffs on Chinese imports during his campaign, and although his treasury secretary repeatedly said they contribute to inflation and some of them are harmful, trade lobbyists for UPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the tariffs are largely here to stay.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who is retiring from Congress at year's end, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that he was disappointed there were no trade items in the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science (CHIPS) Act. "But I’m ready to negotiate a grand bargain on trade in this lame-duck session," he said in a video address Oct. 17. Portman was scheduled to participate in a roundtable of former U.S. trade representatives but was traveling overseas on an official congressional trip.
The Alliance for Trade Enforcement, a coalition of trade associations and business groups, says the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity needs effective dispute settlement to fulfill its promise for American exporters.
U.S. politicians are sending a mixed message on trade with Taiwan, experts said during an event hosted by the Hudson Institute, a right-of-center think tank mostly focused on foreign policy.
The top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said the administration has "a strong case for what they're doing" in restricting U.S. technology that aids the Chinese semiconductor industry (see 2210070049), but he questions how effective it will be unless the Netherlands and Japan go along.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai drew a distinction between 35% tariffs on Russian goods, which she said are designed to punish that country's war of aggression, and 25% (or 7.5%) tariffs on Chinese goods, which she said are not punishing tariffs.
The Federal Maritime Commission released a notice of proposed rulemaking further refining prohibited practices for demurrage and detention, which is required under the Ocean Shipping Reform Act (OSRA).
Florida lawmakers who have asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to start a Section 301 investigation on unfair support for Mexican produce exports are forum shopping after "prior U.S. government investigations have found that Mexican imports have not injured that segment of the U.S. industry," wrote 24 trade groups, mostly agriculture exporters, but also the National Retail Federation and Retail Industry Leaders Association.