Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who voted for the Senate's China package last year, publicly threw a wrench into the already difficult negotiations to hash out a compromise between the House and Senate approaches to investing in America and competing with China.
Solar panel exports were already facing heightened CBP scrutiny under a withhold release order affecting a major supplier of polysilicon, a material used to make ingots that are then made into cells, which are then made into panels. But the early results of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act enforcement suggest that the Biden administration is willing to strictly enforce UFLPA "despite impacts on [solar panel] supply and pricing," said Tim Brightbill, a trade lawyer at Wiley.
Ethiopia was exporting more than $100 million annually of apparel and textiles to the U.S. before it was ousted from the African Growth and Opportunity Act program over civil strife, and a prominent apparel firm and apparel trade group are asking that it be restored.
Of the top 15 exports from Russia last year to the U.S., three were already banned and only two of the others will see its tariff rate hiked to 35%, the rate President Joe Biden announced during his trip to Europe.
CBP wants to develop incentives for green trade, possibly by reviewing authorized economic operator programs, and said that its initial green trade strategy, published June 28, is not the limit of its aspirations. "The goal is to identify incentives that aim to reduce carbon emissions, encourage the use of eco-friendly modes of transport, and support adoption of technologies and practices with positive environmental impacts. Incentives would encourage green trade practices while avoiding negative impacts on the flow of legitimate cargo," the strategy says.
President Joe Biden said he will be increasing tariffs from Column 2 rates to 35% on more than 570 groups of Russian products, and the change will take effect just after midnight July 27. The executive order says each product is in an annex, but that annex has not yet been published. Past imports of these goods were about $2.3 billion annually. "These measures will restrict Russia’s ability to benefit economically from sales to the U.S. market and are carefully calibrated to impose costs on Russia, while minimizing costs to U.S. consumers," the White House said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Chamber of Commerce in each of the countries that have signed onto the Indo-Pacific Economic Forum issued a joint statement strongly supporting the IPEF but also suggesting that tariff reductions be considered. "That is the best way to achieve the most meaningful benefits for American businesses, workers, and consumers," they said June 23.
The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Trade Subcommittee, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., the lead sponsor of a bill to remove tariffs on imported formula until Nov. 14, said that the Senate bill that would remove both tariffs and quotas for 90 days will not be something the House will take up when it returns to Washington in two weeks (see 2205250013).
As senators who support subsidies to build semiconductor chips in the U.S. continue to say the trade title differences are holding up the bill, and that it should drop out, House negotiators say it's not time to give up yet.
Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., a member of the conference committee for the China package, said he has not talked to Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del, about his new bill to pair trade adjustment assistance renewal and a limited trade promotion authority for a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom. But, Kildee said, "I think trade adjustment is so important, I'm willing to put it on any train that will leave the station and reach Biden's desk." Kildee added that he would be cautious about agreeing to take TAA out of the China package. "But I would have to have a lot of certainty that this was not an off ramp, but an on ramp," he said.