The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said further decoupling from China is certain if China doesn't do more to step up on industrial subsidies, intellectual property rights protection, trade secret theft and other U.S. companies' priorities. Myron Brilliant, head of international affairs for the Chamber, told reporters on a Jan. 13 call that there's not much political space for incoming President Joe Biden to roll back tariffs, even as his campaign was critical of the economic consequences of the trade war.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released a list of witnesses slated to testify during the Dec. 29 Section 301 hearing on Vietnam currency manipulation. The agency hasn't addressed a request from trade associations that USTR delay the hearing in order to consider a Dec. 16 Treasury Department report blasting the Vietnam government for tampering with the foreign exchange market “in a sustained, asymmetric manner,” to the detriment of U.S. interests. Treasury released the report nearly a week after the deadline passed for submitting requests to appear at the USTR hearing.

The National Council of Textile Organizations is asking the incoming Joe Biden administration to create a stable market for domestic production of medical gloves, gowns, masks and face shields, both by requirements and supporting demand. The Berry Amendment, which covers military uniforms, should apply to federal purchases of medical protective gear purchases, CEO Kim Glas said Dec. 3 in a news release. She also said the federal government should sign long-term federal contracts for personal protective equipment, or PPE.

China's attempts at using economic tools, such as export controls on rare earth minerals or punishing imports from Australia, have only been somewhat successful, according to Maximilian Ernst, the speaker on the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies webinar Dec. 7, called “How to Respond to China’s Carrots and Sticks? Prospects of a Transatlantic Response to Chinese Economic Coercion.” Ernst is researching Chinese coercion for a Ph.D.

​​​​​Supply chain scholars disagreed on how likely companies are to move production out of China, either due to tariffs or to a desire to diversify sourcing, but agreed that companies aren't likely to be ready for demand shocks without government support. They spoke Dec. 4 during a webinar hosted by the Center for Global Development.

The majority of comments from U.S. interests submitted on whether the U.S. should do anything to pressure Vietnam to stop manipulating its currency favor not putting tariffs on Vietnamese imports. Many comments filed in the docket express disagreement with the very premise of the investigation. HanesBrands, which manufacturers apparel in Vietnam that is exported to the U.S., Australia, Canada, the European Union and China, requested a public hearing on the investigation, and quoted the statute that requires such a hearing if requested by any interested person.

An economist in Europe and one in the U.S. say policymakers talking about the vulnerabilities of supply chains are drawing the wrong conclusions from the shortages of personal protective equipment, but while they say policy decisions should be fact-based, it's not clear that procurement professionals can influence the politicians. Simon Evenett, an international trade professor at Switzerland's University of St. Gallen, said during a Peterson Institute for International Economics program that in most medical goods and medicines, China is not the largest supplier, though it is for PPE.

While some individual companies in the medical and protective equipment sector testified that advantaging U.S. production will prevent shortages in the next pandemic, trade groups generally emphasized that stockpiling is the best solution, and that production needs to be globalized for the lowest risk. All were testifying across two days this week to the International Trade Commission, which was tasked with investigating the U.S. production and trade in goods needed for COVID-19 pandemic response, and supply chain challenges revealed in the crisis.

At the first of two Senate Finance Committee hearings on securing the medical supply chain, senators learned that Homeland Security Investigations has opened 570 cases, and, cooperating with CBP, has stopped “900 shipments of mislabeled, fraudulent, or unauthorized COVID-19 test kits, treatment kits, homeopathic remedies, purported anti-viral products, and” personal protective equipment.

The $38 million in Section 301 tariff costs iRobot incurred in 2019 inflicted a hit of three percentage points on its gross margin for the year, CEO Colin Angle said. IRobot assumes the List 3 tariff exclusion it landed in April on the robotic vacuum cleaners it sources from China will expire at the end of 2020, he said. The reinstatement of 25% tariffs on Chinese goods will result in a “similar contraction” to 2021 gross margin, he said. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer “made it quite explicit” in congressional testimony last month that any granted List 3 exemptions “would expire at the end of the year,” Angle said. Lighthizer’s testimony “is the most explicit guidance that we have been given,” he said July 22 following quarterly results.