The new export working group for CBP’s Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee hopes to make progress on launching electronic export manifest, calling it “one of our primary areas of focus.” Working group member David Corn, executive vice president for Comstock & Theakston, said the group hopes to eventually launch EEM for “all transportation modes.”
During a hearing with the House Ways and Means Committee March 30, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai was asked by many Republicans and a few Democrats why the administration has ruled out cutting tariffs to convince negotiating partners in Asia to open their markets, and why it has shied away from continuing free trade agreement negotiations started during the previous administration.
The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee is asking the Biden administration for more information on Russia's ability to use digital currencies to evade sanctions. The director of national intelligence should say whether there are “any indications” Russia is using digital assets to evade sanctions, said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, including whether Russian oligarchs and officials are turning to cryptocurrency.
Two House oversight committee leaders are looking into Credit Suisse’s compliance with Russian sanctions after the investment firm reportedly asked investors to destroy documents about yachts and private jets owned by its clients. The Credit Suisse directive, reported by the Financial Times in February, “raises significant concerns that it may be concealing information about whether participants” are “evading sanctions” imposed by the U.S. and other countries against Russia, said Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security.
The past several weeks at U.S. sanctions agencies have ranked among the busiest times in recent memory, especially at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, where some employees are working nearly nonstop to implement and enforce new sanctions against Russia, former officials said in interviews. While some former officials said the extra work could shift minor projects to the side, lawyers are concerned it could also delay more pressing agency priorities, including licensing requests.
The U.K. and Canada began negotiations on a new free trade agreement, the U.K.'s Department for International Trade said March 24. British Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan met in Ottawa with Canadian International Trade Minister Mary Ng to launch the talks and build on the U.K.-Canada Trade Continuity Agreement. Areas of focus for the talks include "innovation, digital, data, the environment and women’s economic empowerment," the DIT said.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai will testify at the House Ways and Means Committee March 30 at 10 a.m. The hybrid virtual and in-person hearing is on the topic of the Biden administration's trade policy agenda. She will testify at the Senate Finance Committee March 31st at 10 a.m.
The Federal Maritime Commission has so far received mixed feedback on the possibility of new demurrage and detention billing requirements (see 2202070026), with shippers saying the rules are sorely needed and at least one carrier saying the industry shouldn’t face additional regulations.
Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., the top Republican on the House Agriculture subcommittee that covers trade, told Farmers For Free Trade that ag exporters "want China to live up to their commitments, but we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket."
Congress should abandon the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, which will not address the “root causes” of the nation’s port congestion and shipping issues, the World Shipping Council said. After the Senate Commerce Committee passed the bill March 22 (see 2203220033), the WSC, which represents many of the world's major ocean carriers, said the legislation doesn't do “anything to fix the landside logistics breakdowns that are at the heart of America’s supply chain problems.”