Top Ways and Means Republican Says Tariff Exclusions Should Be Extended Automatically
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, said that incentives to move medicines, active pharmaceutical ingredients and medical supply manufacturing out of China and to the U.S. and “reliable trade partners” is something House Republicans would like to see as part of the next COVID-19 relief package.
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The House has passed a package, and Senate Republicans are talking among themselves about what should be in the Senate's package.
Brady, who was on a conference call with reporters July 22, said that he's been having conversations with both U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross about how they should remove “the work in energy and effort that businesses have to undertake to extend these exclusions right now when they frankly have bigger fish to fry.”
He praised a bill by fellow Ways and Means Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski of Indiana that would require the USTR to extend Section 301 exclusions for a year past their current expiration dates unless he could specifically explain how not renewing the exclusion would cause “severe harm” to the U.S. or the product is important to China's Made in China 2025 industrial policy. He called her bill “a very strong one,” and said businesses should be “focused on surviving this” and keeping people employed rather than having to scramble to find new vendors or argue for an extension.
But he said he didn't know if that could end up in the COVID-19 package, or on a continuing resolution in September.
Earlier this year, the administration offered all importers the opportunity to temporarily defer paying import duties that are not part of trade remedies. When asked by International Trade Today if that deferral option could return, he said he's exploring it. “I don’t have a sense of whether we have enough political support at this time,” he said.