The National Pork Producers' Legislative Action Conference made advocating for market access in Vietnam one of its top three priorities, the trade group said April 14. The NPP Council urged farmers to ask their representatives to sign onto a letter led by Reps. Ron Kind, D-Wis.; Darin LaHood, R-Ill; Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.; and Jim Costa, D-Calif. That letter, sent to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, asks, "While you discuss the full range of trade issues with Vietnam, including those subject to Section 301 investigations, please consider pressing for further market access for U.S. pork."
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai heard from 16 unions, UNITE HERE and the AFL-CIO on their wish for the U.S. to drop its opposition to a Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement waiver for COVID-19 vaccines (see 2102260053). In a readout of the April 13 online meeting, the agency said: “Ambassador Tai reiterated that the Biden-Harris Administration’s top priority is saving lives and ending the pandemic in the United States and around the world. The Ambassador conveyed the Administration’s commitment to increasing Covid-19 vaccine production and distribution, both at home and worldwide.”
At a time when hurricane damage, violence and poverty are driving more Central Americans to the U.S., consultants, advocates and former diplomats say the Central America Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, needs changes to spur development in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Those Northern Triangle countries are the ones sending large numbers of asylum seekers to the U.S. in the last few years. Kellie Meiman Hock, a McLarty Associates managing partner who led the April 14 panel hosted by the Washington International Trade Association, noted that when CAFTA was ratified more than 15 years ago, the hope was that it would bring more economic development to Central America. But instead, trade from the region has been flat.
U.S.-China Business Council President Craig Allen, former deputy assistant secretary for China in the State Department, said that the Chinese were taken by surprise by how little has changed in the new administration. “There was an expectation between [Donald] Trump and [Joe] Biden, there would be a loosening of technology regulations,” he said, but Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has taken steps to tighten export restrictions that affect Huawei, and there have been actions under the new Information, Communications and Telecommunications Services (ICTS) regulations.
European professors speaking about the future of the trans-Atlantic trade relationship said that while it's logical for democratic, rule-of-law countries to coordinate trade policy against an authoritarian rival, that's easier said than done.
Toasts not Tariffs, a coalition of 48 trade groups in the liquor and wine industries, restaurants and retailers, wrote to the commerce and agriculture secretaries and the U.S. trade representative to urge them to convince the European Union and the United Kingdom to lift 25% tariffs on U.S. whiskey exports. The April 12 letter did not mention that those tariffs were in response to 25% tariffs on steel exports from the EU and the U.K., and that lifting the tariffs on steel would end tariffs on whiskey.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he would join the resolution introduced last month by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, urging the resolution of trade negotiations with the United Kingdom (see 2103250040). “This is a very important trading relationship we've got to get settled right away,” Grassley said on a phone call with reporters April 13. Removing barriers for farmers must be a part of any U.K. free trade agreement, Grassley said. The only trade priority he would rank higher is ensuring China makes its promised purchases under phase one, he said.
The White House announced it has selected Chris Magnus, the police chief of Tucson, Arizona, and former police chief of Fargo, North Dakota, and Richmond, California, to lead CBP. The April 12 announcement said, “In each of these cities Magnus developed a reputation as a progressive police leader who focused on relationship-building between the police and community, implementing evidence-based best practices, promoting reform, and insisting on police accountability.” It also said that because Tucson is close to the Mexican border, he has extensive experience in addressing immigration issues.”
European Union Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, in a Der Spiegel interview published April 10, said that the EU has offered to lift its retaliatory tariffs in response to 25% tariffs on EU steel and 10% tariffs on EU aluminum, while they try to resolve the overcapacity problem. “We have proposed suspending all mutual tariffs for six months in order to reach a negotiated solution,” Dombrovskis said, according to the EU press office in Washington. “This would create a necessary breathing space for industries and workers on both sides of the Atlantic,” he said.
The trade policy counsel at a free markets-oriented think tank said that the hike in tariffs on 70% of what we import from China has increased costs on consumers, led to an estimated 300,000 fewer jobs, and didn't achieve its aims. “That might have been worth it if China were making wholesale changes to its commercial policies, but the early indications are not positive,” Clark Packard said during an R Street Institute webinar April 9. Packard said that staffers on Capitol Hill accept his argument that tariffs are damaging to the U.S. economy, but they say that not doing anything to respond to China's quest for economic domination is not an answer.