GSP, MTB May Wait Until Late 2021
PricewaterhouseCoopers has been cautioning its clients not to get their hopes up about a reversal of sections 232 and 301 tariffs with the new administration, and Scott McCandless, a principal in the firm's tax policy services group, also sought to manage expectations for trade policy action in Congress in 2021. McCandless, speaking to a webinar audience April 27, said that while forced labor is a hot issue right now, and CBP “is on a more active footing” on forced labor, he doesn't believe that legislation that would create a rebuttable presumption of forced labor in Xinjiang is going to pass this year. “I doubt that moves forward,” he said.
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In response to an audience question about votes on the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, he said, “Our guess is they will be renewed at some point, but it might be closer to the end of the year before they’re able to turn their attention to it.”
He also said he doesn't expect Congress is going to assert itself by changing the Section 232 provision or the Section 301 provision to give itself a chance to veto tariffs. He said he thinks the bills introduced to change the power in tariff-making will be on hold.
The one area where he did see momentum is in the U.S.-United Kingdom free trade agreement negotiations, saying that the potential for an FTA “is very much alive.”