House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., along with Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., and two California Democrats, announced they are launching a caucus to push for boosting agricultural exports and knocking down trade barriers in ag.
Both of Georgia's senators, plus Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., urged the Biden administration to raise Section 301 tariffs on Chinese solar panels, cells and wafers. They said a Chinese panel costs more than 60% less than U.S.-made panels.
Customs lawyer Ted Murphy, remarking on the nine-page letter from the House Select Committee on China regarding Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and other customs issues (see 2401220005), said firms should be aware that enforcement of laws that affect trade with China is a top priority.
Members of the National Retail Federation are seeing a rise in freight rates and ocean carrier transportation costs and want to make sure that those new fees and surcharges "actually cover real costs and are not intended for profit," Jonathan Gold, NRF vice president of supply chain and customs policy, told Congress this week.
Eight senators, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that "there is abundant evidence" to suggest that Vietnam has not met legal conditions for market economy status.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and two dozen other Democrats, told Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that it's clear that Vietnam doesn't meet the criteria in law to qualify as a market economy -- and that if the agency were to classify it that way, the way that status that would affect 25 antidumping and countervailing duty orders would threaten American workers.
Reps. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., and John Garamendi, D-Calif., urged the Federal Maritime Commission on Jan. 26 to finalize its proposed rule on demurrage and detention billing requirements “as expeditiously as possible.”
Senate Finance Committee member Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, announced he will oppose the nomination of Nelson Cunningham, founder of McLarty Associates, as deputy U.S. trade representative. He pointed to Cunningham's advocacy for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and his firm's lobbying for a Chinese firm that makes glass in Moraine, Ohio, outside Dayton. That firm settled a case in 2018 with the National Labor Relations Board, which alleged it fired three workers who tried to get their colleagues to vote for United Autoworkers representation at the plant. The vote failed 2-1 in 2017.
A bipartisan letter from 10 senators urges the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to work on a process to expand the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), including by setting clearer criteria for determining which species are covered by SIMP and adding forced labor as a factor.
The senators from Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana asked the commerce secretary to reverse a preliminary decision to reduce the "Vietnam-wide" antidumping rate for Vietnamese catfish exporters that haven't been assigned their own rate to 14 cents per kilogram, from a previous $2.39/kg rate.