Lawmakers submitted a host of amendments to the House’s recently released China competition bill, including measures that would introduce new export controls and sanctions authorities and requirements. One submission, a 115-page amendment from Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, would create more congressional oversight of the Commerce Department’s emerging and foundational technology control effort and calls for expanded export restrictions against Chinese military companies.
After the first USMCA deputies meeting, Mexico, Canada and the U.S. issued a joint statement saying that they are scrutinizing the implementation of the prohibition on importing goods made with forced labor. They also discussed environmental law enforcement cooperation, and training planned this year for small businesses so they can access the treaty's benefits. All said "though there have been challenges, progress continues to be made under the Agreement."
The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and that committee's chairman, as well as the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, urged the deputy U.S. trade representative to press Mexico and Canada on market access issues for the energy and agricultural sectors, and the senators also complained about barriers for the telecom, pharmaceutical and television industries in either Mexico or Canada. Deputy USTR Jayme White is meeting with Canadian and Mexican counterparts this week.
In its annual State of American Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce chose to emphasize the need to double the level of legal immigration, its opposition to Build Back Better legislation and what it sees as overly aggressive antitrust enforcement over the need to remove tariffs on hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Chinese imports. Three years ago, the Chamber was arguing that the tariffs needed to go (see 1901100007), but last year, admitted it was not politically feasible as it laid out its trade agenda (see 2101130057).
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, in a year-end video, pointed to a number of settlements during 2021 that both bolstered America's relationships with its allies and promoted the fight against climate change. She pointed to the settlement of a Section 337 case between two South Korean battery makers that allowed for a Georgia plant to open (see 2104120004); the settlement of the 17-year dispute over subsidies to Airbus and Boeing (see 2106150021 and 2106170025); and the agreement between the European Union and the U.S. to replace Section 232 tariffs with a quota system (see 2111010039).
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The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act “maliciously denigrates the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang in disregard of facts and truth,” a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson said at a Dec. 24 regular press conference, according to an English translation. President Joe Biden signed the measure into law Dec. 23 (see 2112230018). U.S. allegations of forced labor and genocide in Xinjiang “are nothing but vicious lies concocted by anti-China forces,” the spokesperson said. The U.S. “is engaging in political manipulation and economic coercion, and seeking to undermine Xinjiang’s prosperity and stability and contain China’s development under the pretext of human rights,” he said. “China deplores and firmly rejects this” new U.S. law.
President Joe Biden on Dec. 23 signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which includes a sanctions provision targeting human rights abusers in China. Congress passed the bill earlier this month (see 2112140077 and 2112160076).
The Senate on Dec. 16 passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which includes a sanctions provision targeting human rights abusers in China. The Senate approved the bill after it passed in the House earlier this week, when lawmakers reached a compromise on the legislation's language (see 2112140077). The bill is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden and become law.
Senate and House lawmakers reached a compromise agreement this week on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which includes a sanctions provision targeting human rights abusers in China. The text of the agreement, released just hours before it passed in the House on Dec. 14, would require the Biden administration to identify and sanction any foreign person, including Chinese government officials, responsible for “serious’ human rights abuses against Muslim minority groups in China's Xinjiang region. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki suggested President Joe Biden will support the bill. "We have been clear that we share Congress' view that action must be taken to hold [China] accountable for human rights abuses, and to address forced labor in Xinjiang," Psaki told reporters Dec. 14. The U.S. has already imposed a range of sanctions and other trade and investment restrictions against Chinese people and entities for human rights violations in Xinjiang, including an investment ban against SenseTime and sanctions against two Xinjiang officials this month (see 2112100034).