Trade Promotion Authority, colloquially known as "fast track," expired in July, and the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are asking the Biden administration to talk to Congress about bringing TPA back. "Like you, we believe that with the right global trading rules in place, American workers and businesses not only can compete in the global economy -- they can win. And like you, we agree that the wrong thing to do in the face of these challenges 'is to put our heads in the sand and say no more trade deals,'" they wrote, quoting an essay by Joe Biden published in 2020.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill being debated in the Senate this week invests $17 billion in port infrastructure, according to a White House summary of the more than 2,000-page bill. That money would go to maintenance backlogs, emissions and congestion near ports, and for electrification and other low-carbon technologies at ports of entry. It also invests $25 billion in airports.
Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, applauded the Biden administration’s recent sanctions against the Cuban government and said he believes more are coming. Menendez, D-N.J., said the U.S. should impose more sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act for human rights violations, similar to the Treasury Department’s July 22 designations of Cuba’s defense minister and a defense agency (see 2107220055). “Secretary [Antony] Blinken has made clear the Administration will continue holding human rights abusers accountable,” Menendez said July 28. “I urge the Administration to consider additional Global Magnitsky designations.”
A Senate bill that would create an export certification system for Native American cultural items passed out of the Indian Affairs Committee July 28. The bill, which was introduced by Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., also has a House companion bill, called the Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony Act of 2021. In addition to the export certification system, it explicitly prohibits the export of Native American cultural items that were illegally obtained, and requires that the Interior Department convene a Native working group of Indian tribe and Native Hawaiian representatives “to provide advice on issues concerning the return of, and illegal trade in, human remains and cultural items.”
The House’s Republican Study Committee released a counterproposal to the Senate’s Endless Frontier Act that would call for a host of new sanctions against China, continue U.S. export control authorities and make some changes to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. The committee’s Countering Communist China Act, released July 29, calls for broad U.S. sanctions actions, including designations against Chinese technology applications, various senior government officials, foreign people that steal U.S. intellectual property and “foreign persons that knowingly spread malign disinformation … for purposes of political warfare.” The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control would also be authorized to hire 10 new employees to “carry out activities of the Office associated with the People’s Republic of China.”
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., along with two other House Republicans, introduced a bill that would require the administration to impose sanctions on "persons who are knowingly responsible for or complicit in, or have directly or indirectly engaged in, supporting the illegal occupation of Tibet." The bill's text was published July 26. "In rejecting the seven-decade long illegal occupation of Tibet by the forces of the Chinese Communist Party, the United States of America would provide relief to a long-suffering people and reinforce its reputation as a strident defender of global human rights," the bill says. The bill says that the administration would be required to impose the sanctions within 180 days of the bill becoming law, unless the president says that not applying sanctions to a certain party is in the national interest of the U.S. In that case, he would have to give Congress a justification for the waiver.
Although there were some specific complaints about how USMCA has gone in its first year -- especially what witnesses and senators said was an anemic effort to get Mexico to change its stance on genetically modified agricultural crops -- much of the hearing in the Senate Finance Committee on July 27 explored how USMCA should be seen as a model for future trade agreements.
The U.S. should sanction China in response to the recent Chinese-led cyberattacks against dozens of companies and entities in the U.S. and abroad (see 2107190022), four Republican senators said in a July 23 letter to President Joe Biden. The U.S. should impose sanctions similar to those announced against Russia in April, the senators said. Those sanctions authorized restrictions against people and companies operating in Russia’s defense and technology sectors for cyber criminal activity (see 2104150019). “I call on you to clarify your red lines and provide transparency regarding how your Administration will act to protect the U.S. from further cyberattacks,” said Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas. The White House didn’t comment.
The Congressional Research Service on July 22 released an updated version of its report on U.S. policy toward Cuba, detailing sanctions and restrictions imposed on the country’s military, exports to the island, remittances and more. President Joe Biden recently authorized more sanctions against Cuba and hasn’t committed to repealing trade sanctions or other restrictions on sending remittances to the island (see 2107160013).
The House passed a bill last week that would authorize the State Department to provide rewards for information about sanctions evasion. The Bassam Barabandi Rewards for Justice Act, passed July 20, would allow the U.S. to pay for information about illegal exports, services or assistance that violates U.S. or United Nations sanctions or trade restrictions. The Senate version of the bill was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations July 21. The bill is named after Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat who defected from the government.