Grassley Says Finance Committee 'Moving Very Quickly' on Section 232 Bill
The approach to a future bill that would give Congress the ability to intervene on Section 232 tariffs will depend on what version can get the broadest bipartisan support, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters Feb. 13. He said he doesn't have his mind made up on what has to be in the bill to constrain Section 232 actions. He said his staff is "moving very quickly" to put together a bill that "shows the appropriate respect to [Sen. Pat] Toomey and to [Sen. Rob] Portman," Republican committee members who have each authored bills that would constrain the president on the tariffs (see 1901310029 and 1902120033)
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However, the timing of a Commerce Department report on auto tariffs is not connected to how fast the committee will act, Grassley said, in response to a question from International Trade Today. "Our moving on 232 has nothing to do with autos or aluminum or steel, it comes from the proposition that the Congress in 1962 delegated too much constitutional authority to the president."
While he declined to weigh in on whether the bill should tackle the existing steel and aluminum tariffs, he said he's trying to reason with the White House staff about lifting those tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Grassley said that as he talks to them, "my approach has been I want to help the president to get to the end game. What can I do to help the president to get [the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement] passed?"
"If the motive of putting tariffs on in the first place was to let people know you were serious about doing something, and they've done it now, they've delivered ... isn't the purpose of the tariffs done?" he explained.
Lifting aluminum and steel tariffs on Canada and Mexico is critical to getting the new NAFTA, or USMCA, passed, he reiterated, because Congress, Mexico and Canada won't move to ratify with those tariffs on. "I'm just trying to get people to understand what's a fact of life," he said. He suggested that a White House official has complained that Canada won't accept a quota on metal exports equal to current levels, but instead wants 120 percent of today's exports. Grassley said with exasperation, "We want the marketplace to work!"
Although Grassley finds some common ground with Democrats on government action on prescription drug pricing, he defended the biologics exclusivity period that has become a target for USMCA foes on the left (see 1902070020). "We ought to protect intellectual property and most of this intellectual property on new drugs comes from the United States, and we ought to encourage as much as we can with the 10-year [period], instead of the usual eight years. ... it's going to encourage more research and development and more miracle drugs, so we ought to pursue down that road," Grassley said.
However, he added that even if you agree with the argument that a 10-year exclusivity for biologics would fence in future congressional action to make biologics more affordable, "that's something that's in the document, and we're not going to renegotiate it. Even if we wanted to, Mexico and Canada don't want to go back to the table because there'd be other things negotiated."