Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross named Cordell Hull deputy undersecretary for industry and security and Joe Semsar the deputy undersecretary at the International Trade Administration, a Commerce spokesperson said Nov. 18. The two were appointed to their positions Nov. 12, the spokesperson said.
China criticized a Nov. 14 U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report that called for more export controls against China and more support for Taiwan, saying the commission’s report is inaccurate. “The committee you mentioned is deeply entrenched in prejudice against China. Its reports are rarely based on facts,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Nov. 15. “I have no interest in commenting.” The report also provided details on “harassment” tactics employed by China against U.S. companies, including unannounced site investigations and unwarranted tax investigations (see 1911140050).
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., who leads the working group negotiating with the U.S. trade representative over the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, said he anticipates that USTR Robert Lighthizer will send over text of the changes to the agreement next week. Neal said he spoke with Lighthizer Nov. 14, to tell him he'd be forwarding “a series of, we think, could be make-or-break issues, and that we hoped that he would digest them and then respond to us, fast."
In the Nov. 14 editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Export-Import Bank renewal a very important piece of legislation, at her press conference Nov. 14, and said it shouldn't be a bill that divides the two parties. However, The United States Export Finance Agency Act of 2019, which reauthorizes the Ex-Im Bank for 10 years, passed out of committee with no Republican support.
Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer said he doesn't know if they'll to be able to evaluate the details of the U.S.-Japan skinny trade deal in the hearing scheduled for next week, because the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has not released the text yet. He said in a Nov. 13 interview it's “troubling" that the House Ways and Means Committee has not received text of the deal, which was signed Sept. 26. "Sometimes dealing with USTR can be a little opaque, which is one of my constants through several administrations," he said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that a resolution to the negotiations between the Democrats in the working group and the Trump administration on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is “imminent," and that she believes it can be a template for future trade agreements. Pelosi, D-Calif., who was speaking at her weekly press conference on Nov. 14, suggested that the AFL-CIO would not argue against a "yes" vote for the NAFTA rewrite. "I think we'll see what the implementation is, and the enforcement is, and I think it will be a value that is shared by our friends in labor as well as the Democrats in Congress," she said.
On a day when more than two dozen House Republicans tweeted that their chamber should pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement -- most contrasting the impeachment movement with the lack of action on the trade deal -- the Democrats' No. 2 said his party's members want to finish negotiations with the U.S. trade representative and get the bill under consideration.
The Commerce Department is slated to take over export control responsibility from the State Department, which would mean Congress would no longer be notified when there are sales of more than $1 million to foreign governments. The final rule is ready for implementation, but Congress could stop it if there's a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to reverse agency rules.
The Transportation and Related Equipment Technical Advisory Committee has worked with the Commerce and Defense departments on several Wassenaar Arrangement proposals, some of which are nearly ready for interagency review and others that are scheduled for proposal at Wassenaar next year. The proposals involve space-related technologies, compressors, industrial gas turbines and commercial supersonic engines, said Ari Novis, chair of the committee and director of international trade compliance for Pratt & Whitney.