Peter Navarro, a White House adviser who specializes in trade, argued during a video interview with the Washington Post that a Biden administration would mean a return “to the old globalist ways of shipping our supply chains offshore.” Navarro said during the Oct. 30 interview that blue-collar workers in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania understand that Joe Biden voted for NAFTA and voted to admit China into the World Trade Organization, and that they blame those actions for millions of lost factory jobs. “Trade's one of the keys to unlocking the Midwest battleground states,” Navarro said.
President Donald Trump officially ended the Section 232 tariffs on aluminum from Canada through an Oct. 27 proclamation. The duty-free treatment applies retroactively to Sept. 1, as planned (see 2009150048), though reimposition of the tariffs remains possible, depending on import levels of Canadian aluminum. Any imports of aluminum subject to the tariffs into a foreign-trade zone before Sept. 1 under privileged foreign status will still be subject to the tariffs upon entry for consumption, Trump said. The harmonized tariff schedule number for aluminum from Canada subject to Section 232 tariffs expired on Oct. 27, CBP said in a CSMS message that day. The expired subheading is 9903.85.21.
Talks toward a comprehensive trade agreement with the United Kingdom would likely continue under a Joe Biden administration, though when a deal could be reached is unclear, K&L Gates partner Stacy Ettinger said during a webinar on how trade policy would change if there is an administration change after the election, or progress if there is a second Trump administration. Ettinger, a staffer for Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., before joining the private sector, was joined by former White House trade staffer Clete Willems, now at Akin Gump, during a webinar Oct. 20 hosted by American University's law school.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order Sept. 30 asking the departments of Commerce, Defense, the Treasury and the Interior “to investigate our Nation's undue reliance on critical minerals, in processed or unprocessed form, from foreign adversaries.” This order follows one from late 2017 that asked agencies to identify which minerals are critical. Trump acknowledged that there is not sufficient domestic supply, but said that under International Emergency Economic Powers Act authority, he wants to make sure imports are coming from allies, not adversaries.
An informal adviser to the Joe Biden for President campaign and a former Trump administration political appointee at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative disagreed on the success of President Donald Trump's approach to trade and on the right way to take on China's heavy subsidization of industry and intellectual property theft.
A recently announced reduction in quotas on Brazilian semi-finished steel results in a reduction in the annual quota amount of about 10%, according to an annex, released Sept. 1, to the president’s earlier proclamation. Originally implemented as part of a deal with Brazil for the country to avoid Section 232 steel tariffs, the adjustment for decreased U.S. steel demand causes the quota for subheading 9903.80.57, which covers steel blooms, billets and slabs, semi-finished, to fall on an annual basis to 3,155,137,048 kg, down 350,570,783 kg from the original deal. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has said that, in terms of remaining quota amounts for the year, the reduction amounts to a decline from 350,000 metric tons (350,000,000 kg) to 60,000 metric tons (60,000,000 kg) (see 2008310010). The annex also implements in new subheading 9903.80.62 an exemption from the decreased quota amounts for covered products already contracted for purchase, provided that the decrease would result in a disruption, among other conditions.
In campaign material, both President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden say they want to bring critical supply chains back to America so the country isn't dependent on China for the production of critical goods. Biden's campaign says he wants to make a $400 billion procurement investment, and put more teeth in the Buy American policy. Trump says he wants there to be 100% expensing deductions allowed for robotics and pharmaceutical firms that reshore manufacturing in the U.S. He also says there will be no federal contracts for companies that outsource to China. Biden says he will “fix the harmful policies of the Trump administration” in tax and trade, but doesn't specify what he wants to change.
While many expect a President Joe Biden to be less protectionist than President Donald Trump, Michael Smart, a managing director at Rock Creek Global Advisors and former international trade counsel for Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, wasn't ready to say that Biden would roll back tariffs on either China or Europe, though he did say that Biden wouldn't “go after the European Union” as Trump has. He said that a Trump or a Biden administration would have the same focus on expanding Buy American rules, which cover government procurement.
Correction: The July 14 executive order ending Hong Kong's special trade status doesn't result in Hong Kong goods being subject to Section 301 duties and antidumping and countervailing duties (see 2007150054).
The White House has not implemented a Buy American order that has been talked about for months (see 2004300046 and 2003110055), and now Joe Biden is proposing some of the same ideas in a white paper on making supply chains more resilient.