Two Democrat and two Republican senators want to give the Commerce Department the ability to add substitutable products to antidumping and countervailing duty cases, to help fight circumvention of those duties. It would only apply to nonmarket economies. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., are calling the bill, which was introduced Nov. 19, the Play By the Rules Act. They say that China violates the spirit of the law by altering products that are about to be hit with duties. “In fact, of all the anti-circumvention petitions ever filed for ‘minor alterations,’ almost 70 percent are against China," a bill explainer said. Baldwin and Capito introduced a bill with same name in last session of Congress, in 2018. It did not get any hearings or votes.
The trade war that President Donald Trump began with China 16 months ago is creating pain for businesses, but there's a deeper strategic mistake to consider, said Matthew Goodman, senior vice president for Asian economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Goodman, who was speaking during the first session in a Congressional Trade Series on Nov. 19, said, “I still don't know what the basic strategic goal is here." He said he didn't know whether the administration wants to get structural changes to China's economy, as it claims, or whether it wants to reduce the bilateral trade deficit, or to contain China's rise.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., held a press event Nov. 17 to draw attention to the problem of substandard over-the-counter drugs and topical medicines imported from China and sold at dollar stores. Schumer pointed to a Food and Drug Administration compliance letter sent to the parent company of Dollar Tree earlier in the month, which asked the corporation to identify how it would change its supply chain so that it was no longer buying from firms that are on import alerts, such as the acne treatment pads it received from Shanghai Weieyra Daily Chemicals Factory and drugs from Hangzhou Zhongbo Industrial Company.
An economics working paper found that importers are paying nearly as much for Chinese goods hit by tariffs as they did before Section 201 and 301 tariffs, which means Chinese companies are not the ones bearing the burden, contrary to President Donald Trump's claims. The Harvard University, University of Chicago and Federal Reserve Bank economists said they documented “that the tariffs were almost fully passed through to total prices paid by importers," but that doesn't mean Chinese companies aren't harmed, too. The tariffs would likely reduce the volume of U.S. purchases, even if Chinese companies are able to maintain their profit margins, they said.
Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, the National Taxpayers Union and 16 other groups sent a letter Nov. 15 to every member of Congress urging them to reject pension reform legislation that has been talked about as a possible companion to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement implementing bill (see 1910160054). "Attaching any of them to other legislation, from must-pass appropriations to the USMCA trade agreement, is unacceptable," the groups said.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., who leads the working group negotiating with the U.S. trade representative over the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, said he anticipates that USTR Robert Lighthizer will send over text of the changes to the agreement next week. Neal said he spoke with Lighthizer Nov. 14, to tell him he'd be forwarding “a series of, we think, could be make-or-break issues, and that we hoped that he would digest them and then respond to us, fast."
Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer said he doesn't know if they'll to be able to evaluate the details of the U.S.-Japan skinny trade deal in the hearing scheduled for next week, because the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has not released the text yet. He said in a Nov. 13 interview it's “troubling" that the House Ways and Means Committee has not received text of the deal, which was signed Sept. 26. "Sometimes dealing with USTR can be a little opaque, which is one of my constants through several administrations," he said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that a resolution to the negotiations between the Democrats in the working group and the Trump administration on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is “imminent," and that she believes it can be a template for future trade agreements. Pelosi, D-Calif., who was speaking at her weekly press conference on Nov. 14, suggested that the AFL-CIO would not argue against a "yes" vote for the NAFTA rewrite. "I think we'll see what the implementation is, and the enforcement is, and I think it will be a value that is shared by our friends in labor as well as the Democrats in Congress," she said.
Do not change de minimis through the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, 130 House members told U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer last month, in a letter led by the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee chairman and ranking member. Members of both parties have panned the idea of a reciprocal de minimis in the NAFTA rewrite. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, recently said that the $800 threshold will not be changed through the implementing legislation (see 1910290048).
President Donald Trump told a Wall Street Journal White House reporter that he's been fully briefed by the U.S. trade representative on the issue of auto tariffs, and said he will make a decision very soon on whether he will delay imposing tariffs on imported cars and car parts.