House Democrats and the Trump administration are “still at work” on a bill to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and are “making progress every day,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday. “We’re not there yet.” The House “will be able to proceed” on a bill “as soon as we can get the assurances from the administration and from everyone involved that there will be enforceability of some of the provisions” and it will “be an improvement” of the North American Free Trade Agreement, she said. “I’m optimistic.” Back-and-forth proposals between House Democrats and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are “confidential,” she said. “We feel very good about being on a path to yes,” she said. “While we have some good things in the bill, it’s only a list of good things unless it can be enforced.” USTR didn't comment.
House Consumer Protection Subcommittee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., “largely” agrees the tech industry should have to earn its content liability protection. After Wednesday’s hearing on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (see 1910150058), she told reporters it’s important Congress finds the best way to ensure content is “managed appropriately.”
Even minor changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act could have “outsized consequences” for the tech industry and consumers, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman plans to testify Wednesday. Consumer advocates and academics prepared testimony blaming the industry for not doing enough to combat illegal platform activity. House Commerce Committee lawmakers meet Wednesday to discuss the industry’s content liability shield (see 1910090059).
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer declined to testify at an Oct. 16 hearing (see 1910070031) on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the House Commerce Committee said Thursday. As the committee explores the statute’s consumer protection implications, “it’s extremely disappointing” Lighthizer “would refuse” to testify on the “inclusion of similar language in trade agreements,” a committee spokesperson said. The hearing would have been an “opportunity for him to explain” how such language in trade agreements “benefits Americans in light of consumers’ growing concerns about the health of the internet.” USTR didn’t comment.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., invited U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to testify at an Oct. 16 hearing (see 1909260041) on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Pallone and ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., wrote USTR in August asking Lighthizer to not include Section 230-like protections in trade deals, given ongoing policy discussions about the tech industry's liability shield. “It’s important for the Committee to hear directly from Ambassador Lighthizer about how these provisions may affect the ability of the United States and our trading partners to enforce existing laws or write new ones,” said Pallone. USTR didn't comment.
The next few months include a "rapid-fire succession of trade and tech war deadlines" with much uncertainty for the fight between the U.S. and China, Bank of America economists Ethan Harris and Alexander Lin wrote investors Monday. What happens with Huawei's temporary general license is likely the most important unknown, they said. Huawei would be cut off from all U.S. exports Nov. 17, but "we expect an 'extend and pretend' scenario where Huawei remains on the 'entity list' but is allowed to keep buying US inputs." The other deadlines, all of which occur over the next three months, involve tariff increases on products from China and a decision on whether to impose tariffs on autos and car parts. The U.S. Trade Representative's office and the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security didn't comment Tuesday.
Of 15 categories of Chinese-sourced Mac Pro components Apple sought exclusions from 25 percent Section 301 List 3 tariffs in July (see 1907260027), the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative granted 10, agency records show. Of the five denials, USTR rejected all because Apple “failed to show that the imposition of additional duties on the particular product would cause severe economic harm to you or other U.S. interests,” said Sept. 23 notices posted Monday and searchable in the public docket. The denials were for Mac Pro CPU heat sinks, BIOS printed circuit boards, AC power cables, caster wheel assemblies and data cables, said the docket. Waivers were granted on the 10 other requests in mid-September. Apple didn’t comment.
Rationales for opposing the President Donald Trump’s plan to increase Section 301 duties on Chinese goods to 30 percent “have only strengthened with the passage of time since the imposition of the original tariffs on Lists 1, 2, and 3,” commented CTA in docket USTR-2019-0015. Since July 2018, “these tariffs have cost the consumer technology industry and its consumers -- not China -- more than $10 billion,” it said. That includes more than $1 billion in tariff payments “on 5G-related products, it said. For Q4, the industry “expects to pay an additional $7 billion to account for tariffs on new products,” said CTA. Tariffs create “a negative chain reaction” for the consumer tech industry, commented the Information Technology Industry Council. The administration claimed it acted “to avoid placing tariffs on consumer products” when it imposed the first three rounds of 25 percent duties, but “there is simply no way to protect consumers from tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods,” said ITI. Hiking the duty rates to 30 percent “would only cause additional harm to U.S. consumers, cost U.S. jobs, and undermine U.S. technology companies in the fight for global leadership,” said ITI. “The proposed increase of tariffs on products from Lists 1-3 specifically affects” a wide variety of consumer products, including smart appliances and virtual-reality headsets, it said. Raising tariffs “will have broad implications, as all telecommunications equipment relies on gateways, modems, optical transceivers and routers,” it said.
Comments are due Sept. 30 to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative suggesting sites and physical markets for the Notorious Markets List for the Special 301 out-of-cycle review, said Monday's Federal Register. Rebuttal comments are due Oct. 15. The USTR is seeking "examples of online and physical markets based outside the United States that reportedly engage in and facilitate substantial copyright piracy or trademark counterfeiting," said the notice.
France’s digital service tax (DST) is a radical departure from international norm, discriminates against U.S. companies and undermines efforts to reach global, multilateral consensus on the digital economy, tech companies and trade groups told U.S. officials Monday (see 1908140056). Witnesses from Facebook, Google, Amazon, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and the Information Technology Industry Council testified before the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and officials from various federal agencies. Representatives from the departments of Commerce, State, Agriculture, Homeland Security and others questioned tech witnesses as part of the USTR’s Section 301 investigation of France’s DST.