Senate Finance Committee member Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., looking forward to the opportunity to rewrite tax laws next year as the Trump-era tax cuts expire, recently told a tax reporter at Punchbowl News that he will be pushing a carbon border adjustment tax, what he calls a "foreign pollution fee." He said it would make American production more cost competitive and help "our balance of trade" (see 2311030006).

Senate appropriators marked up a bill that would spend $2 million more a year on the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and $4.1 million more on the International Trade Commission, in each case matching the president's budget request.

At a field hearing in Michigan, House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and committee member Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., emphasized electric vehicle battery maker Gotion's ties to suppliers that use Uyghur forced labor, and questioned why Gotion should be allowed to open factories in their states. Gotion declined to send a representative to testify, they said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced a bill that would require the president to impose tariffs of at least 500% on all products imported from countries that buy oil or petroleum products from Iran.

A coalition of business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the E-Merchants Trade Council, the National Foreign Trade Council and the Express Association of America, is pushing back against the de minimis legislation that was approved in the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this year, arguing that it would be "a massive cost to the federal government," shift trade to the mail, and create congestion at airports and a wave of abandoned packages.

A recently introduced bill would create a 10-year tariff exemption for bicycle parts, with importers required to certify and document to CBP that the parts were used in the assembly of bicycles in the U.S. to qualify for the exemption, according to the text of the bill, released July 24.

New Democrat Coalition trade task force leaders, joined by economic growth task force leaders, called on House and Senate leaders "to prioritize the reauthorization and modernization of AGOA," the African Growth and Opportunity Act. They said it should be renewed as quickly as possible, ahead of its September 2025 expiration.

Industry players and a law professor argued that the International Trade Commission's power to stop imports that are found to be infringing on domestic patents has become a form of blackmail by foreign companies against domestic companies, and that its original reason for being is no longer true.

Former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania Pat Toomey, who was one of the strongest advocates of free trade when he served in the Senate, told a moderator from the American Enterprise Institute that he doesn't believe Congress will pass more detailed legislation to curtail agencies' leeway to write regulations. A Supreme Court decision said judges will have more authority to overrule regulations, as the deference they had given to reasonable regulation is no longer the judicial branch's baseline.

Senate Finance Committee leaders are asking USDA to do more to prevent the introduction of potato wart into the U.S. In a June 16 letter, which was joined by seven Republicans, eight Democrats and independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, asked that USDA supervise the processing facilities that use Prince Edward Island potatoes, so that the waste is treated as a biohazard.