Expect members of the Senate Commerce, Finance, Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees to be named as China bill conferees, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told reporters after a March 23 hearing.
BALTIMORE -- U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai continued to throw cold water on the idea of reviving negotiations for a free-trade agreement with the United Kingdom, saying, "A free trade agreement is a tool. It is a very 20th century tool. It has its place certainly in the toolbox," she said, but said that she wants these U.K.-U.S. economic dialogues to be "maximally responsive" to today's trade challenges. She said she wants to make sure "that we don’t spend years and spend a lot of blood, sweat and tears working on something that isn't going to be relevant to the needs of our people or our economies."
The Senate Commerce Committee passed the Ocean Shipping Reform Act by a voice vote March 22. The bill would shift the burden of proof on unreasonable detention and demurrage to carriers and forbid them from unreasonably declining export shipments. A recent panel at the Capitol revealed that before the COVID-19 pandemic-related supply chain crunch, 20% of containers went back to Asia empty, and now it's 80% (see 2203180050).
A new Senate bill could require the government to regularly review whether Russia’s major oil companies should be added to the Entity List. Under the bill, introduced last week by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., the interagency end-user review committee would be required to review every 90 days whether Rosneft, Surgutneftegas, Lukoil, Gazprom and other Russian oil companies warrant placement on the Entity List. “We MUST make completely clear to Russian oil companies that the U.S. stands for freedom; and they will be completely black listed and stay that way until it is proven to Congress they deserve to do business in our freedom-loving nation,” Scott said in a statement.
The Russia and Belarus Financial Sanctions Act, clarifying that foreign subsidiaries of U.S. financial institutions must comply with American sanctions against Russia and Belarus, passed out of the House Financial Services Committee March 17 on a voice vote. The Nowhere to Hide Oligarchs' Assets Act, which gives the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network more access to records so that they can "detect Russian oligarchs who are participating in money laundering techniques to hide their money, avoid scrutiny, and evade our sanctions," passed out of the same committee on a 26-23 party-line vote.
Sen. Jim Risch and Rep. Mike Simpson, both Idaho Republicans, led a bicameral, bipartisan letter asking the Biden administration to push Mexico to comply with its agreements to allow the import of fresh U.S. potatoes. The letter from 34 members of Congress, including the Senate Finance Committee's top Democrat and Republican, said Mexico says it needs additional site visits in the U.S. before restoring market access.
The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation amended numerous entries under its Zimbabwe, Belarus, Cyber and Chemical Weapons sanctions regimes. Under the Zimbabwe sanctions list, OFSI amended the entries for Owen Ncube, Anselem Nhamo Sanyatwe and Zimbabwe Defence Industries.
Companies are increasingly choosing to voluntarily file with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to avoid being caught up in CFIUS’s non-notified transaction process, CFIUS lawyers and experts said. That trend, combined with faster CFIUS clearances, could mean an increase in CFIUS filings this year, they said.
Even as the European Council agreed on the approach to a carbon border adjustment mechanism, a lawmaker in the EU Parliament said that the fact that CBAM did not make it out of the trade committee showed how thorny it will be to get a law passed to hike tariffs on imports that do not come from countries that are fighting climate change as strongly as the EU.
The Senate will need to amend the House China package with upper chamber language and send it back to the lower chamber in order to begin conferencing the two measures, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said March 17. Calling it a procedural step, he noted a “small band of Republicans” is standing in the way of “quick action.”