A bipartisan, bicameral bill would create a Maritime Security Trust Fund, into which revenues would come from tonnage fees on Chinese-owned and Chinese-flagged ships visiting U.S. ports, special tonnage taxes, light money, and tariffs and duties, including Section 301 tariffs.
A dispute panel ruled that Mexico's ban on genetically modified white corn, along with its intention to phase out GMO yellow corn for industrial foods and animal feed, violate the NAFTA successor agreement, because they "are not based on relevant international standards, guidelines or recommendations, or on an assessment, as appropriate to the circumstances, of the risk to human, animal, or plant life or health," and Mexico didn't conduct its own documented risk assessment, or base the decree on science.
President Joe Biden called for the creation of a new task force to counter foreign economic coercion, which he said will help the U.S. better respond to coercive measures by “countries of concern,” including China.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, in preparation for its April Special 301 Report on countries that don't provide adequate protection of intellectual property rights, is seeking comments as well as requests to testify at a Feb. 19 hearing.
The former chief of staff to then-U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been chosen for USTR in Donald Trump's second administration.
More than 40 members of Congress are asking U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to push back against a Colombian plan to investigate U.S. corn subsidies. The letter, led by Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Reps. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., and Dan Kildee, D-Mich., noted that Colombia found that U.S. milk powder exports were subsidized to the extent that countervailing duties were warranted, and "imposed punitive tariffs."
President-elect Donald Trump will nominate billionaire businessman Howard Lutnick to be Commerce Department secretary, Trump announced Nov. 19. "He will lead our tariff and trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative," Trump said in a statement.
Indonesia has agreed to “restore an accelerated track” for the U.S. to export apples to the country, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a Nov. 1 emailed press release. Indonesia agreed to allow the exports after “extensive engagement” by both USTR and USDA, the agency said, adding that the Indonesian measure was an “unjustified” trade barrier. USTR said it will “monitor implementation of this fast-track channel closely and make sure that U.S. producers, growers, and exporters can continue to export U.S. products.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is likely to react “more negatively and more directly” than his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, to the EU’s plan to start taxing carbon-intensive imports, a former U.S. trade official said Oct. 17.
Former Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Martha Bárcena said that she has been told that the U.S. will not comply with the panel ruling that said that rollup was understood to be part of the automotive rule of origin (see 2403070067), and she said that is undermining USMCA. She said that's because both the Republicans and the Democrats are fighting for the political support of the United Autoworkers and Teamsters. (The autoworkers' union characterizes rollup as watering down the requirement for North American content in vehicles).