World Trade Organization members elected New Zealand's Clare Kelly to serve as the new head of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements. Members at the March 27 meeting also reviewed five existing trade agreements, looking at the EU-U.K. RTA on goods and services, the economic partnership agreement between Eastern and Southern Africa states and the U.K., and the U.K.-Japan comprehensive economic cooperation and partnership agreement; the India-Mauritius CEPA; and the Turkey-Serbia free trade deal, WTO said. The next meeting is set for July 3-4.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said her team is on "phase three" of its reform talks at the World Trade Organization, saying that phase brings in all WTO members. Tai, speaking during a March 24 House Ways and Means Committee hearing, said her team in Geneva is "bringing written proposals every meeting" with the goal of making "a more functional negotiating forum." The aim is to move WTO dispute settlement away from litigation and toward negotiation, Tai said. She also decried the WTO's recent rulings against the Section 232 national security tariff action, saying they "are deeply concerning to us and to our national security sovereignty."
CBP should consider developing a new process to connect the “lowest level house bill of lading information” to the exporting carrier’s manifest for certain multi-modal exports, a Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee working group said this week. COAC’s Export Modernization Working Group, which outlined the recommendation during a March 29 COAC meeting, said the process would apply to multi-modal shipments “exporting the U.S. via land borders, for subsequent departure from non- U.S. air/seaports to foreign destinations.”
Thomas Feddo, former assistant Treasury secretary for investment security, joined Patomak Global Partners as a senior adviser. Feddo will advise on "sanctions and foreign investment-related risks for domestic and international conglomerates and financial institutions," the firm said this week. Feddo served at Treasury from 2018 to 2021, where he led the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.
World Trade Organization members recently adopted “a range of tools and recommendations” that the body said will improve implementation of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures. Those recommendations were outlined in two documents adopted by the SPS Committee, including one, G/SPS/67, that lists “existing tools and resources to enhance the implementation” of the SPS agreement for SPS approval procedures for food, animal and plant products, and another, G/SPS/68, that provides recommendations on SPS approval procedures.
The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee applauded the recent U.S. sanctions against Syria but said more should be done. “It is good to see the U.S. and UK working together to counter the Assad regime and Hezbollah’s dangerous role in narco-trafficking,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a press release this week, referencing the designations imposed by both countries against Syrian military officials and other people and companies involved in smuggling amphetamines (see 2303280026). “The administration needs to keep up the pressure to counter this growing threat, including by making sure countries normalizing with Assad understand they are working with a drug lord.”
The House Foreign Affairs Committee this week advanced two sanctions bills, including one that could lead to new human rights sanctions against Haiti and another that would prevent the administration from removing sanctions against Cuba until it meets certain requirements.
A Washington, D.C., court last week rejected a Russian citizen’s bid to dismiss government accusations that he misled investors about his company’s “key” space technology and several U.S. “adverse national security determinations” against the company. The ruling came after the Securities and Exchange Commission said Mikhail Kokorich, former CEO of space industry startup Momentus, made several “misrepresentations, false statements, and material omissions” in merger discussions with another firm, failing to disclose that the Commerce Department had rejected at least one of his company's export license applications and planned to deny another (SEC v. Mikhail Kokorich, D.D.C. # 21-1869).
The Biden administration should sanction Amjad Yousef, a Syrian military official, for his role in killing innocent civilians during the Tadamon massacre in Syria in April 2013, said the Republican and Democratic leaders on the House and Senate foreign relations committees. The lawmakers said Yousef should be sanctioned under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, adding that they have taken “note of the disappointingly slow pace of sanctions under the Caesar Act and believe more can be done to ensure that perpetrators of atrocities in Syria face consequences for their actions.”
In more than four hours of questioning during a hearing March 24 before the House Ways and Means Committee, no member of Congress advocated for lessening tariffs on Chinese goods under Section 301, or for reopening exclusions applications.