The U.S. should lead the charge to reopen the Environmental Goods Agreement in Geneva, House Ways and Means Republicans wrote April 22, on Earth Day. This follows a resolution introduced earlier in the month by four pro-trade Democrats calling for the same thing (see 2104080050).
Clete Willems, a former Donald Trump administration trade staffer, told the Senate Finance Committee that technology sales to China help pay for research and development here, so as Congress considers how to bolster the semiconductor industry, it should also be sure not to put export controls on goods that are not sensitive.
Former U.S. negotiators for the Environmental Goods Agreement at the World Trade Organization say the collapse of talks in 2016 means trying again with the countries that are major players in solar panels, wind turbines and the like is not likely to be productive this year. Mark Linscott, former assistant U.S. trade representative at the WTO, said he thinks even getting the fisheries subsidies deal done in Geneva this year is “dicey.” He recalled that it seemed promising when a plurilateral approach was taken on EGA, and China, when it was in the rotating chair at the G-20 group of nations, it pushed for a ministerial statement on the EGA that said it had found a landing zone, and the countries would “aim to conclude ... an ambitious, future-oriented EGA that that seeks to eliminate tariffs on a broad range of environmental goods by an EGA Ministerial meeting to be held by the end of 2016.”
Beth Baltzan, a former Democratic trade counsel at the House Ways and Means Committee and career staffer in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, has been named a senior advisor to USTR Katherine Tai. “She understands the connective tissues in our economy and I look forward to leaning on her expertise and guidance as we shape a worker-centric trade policy,” Tai said in a statement announcing the appointment. Baltzan has testified before Congress that the World Trade Organization hobbled trade remedies (see 1905220038) and has been critical of the impulse to lower tariffs as the primary approach of trade policy (see 1905220038).
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai's conversations with her counterparts from Italy and the Netherlands addressed global overcapacity in steel, according to summaries of the video calls released April 16. The administration has suggested that Section 232 tariffs on aluminum and steel cannot be removed until overcapacity has been addressed, even when the countries subject to those tariffs are not dumping steel or aluminum in their exports to the U.S.
The chief trade counsel for the Democratic majority on the Senate Finance Committee, and Joe Biden's former head of economic and domestic policy when he was vice president have been nominated as deputy U.S. trade representatives. Sarah Bianchi, who works at Evercore ISI, and senate staffer Jayme White were named by the White House on April 16. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., White's boss, called both “top-notch” choices, adding, “I am excited to see these nominations move forward as soon as possible.”
The National Pork Producers' Legislative Action Conference made advocating for market access in Vietnam one of its top three priorities, the trade group said April 14. The NPP Council urged farmers to ask their representatives to sign onto a letter led by Reps. Ron Kind, D-Wis.; Darin LaHood, R-Ill; Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.; and Jim Costa, D-Calif. That letter, sent to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, asks, "While you discuss the full range of trade issues with Vietnam, including those subject to Section 301 investigations, please consider pressing for further market access for U.S. pork."
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai heard from 16 unions, UNITE HERE and the AFL-CIO on their wish for the U.S. to drop its opposition to a Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement waiver for COVID-19 vaccines (see 2102260053). In a readout of the April 13 online meeting, the agency said: “Ambassador Tai reiterated that the Biden-Harris Administration’s top priority is saving lives and ending the pandemic in the United States and around the world. The Ambassador conveyed the Administration’s commitment to increasing Covid-19 vaccine production and distribution, both at home and worldwide.”
U.S.-China Business Council President Craig Allen, former deputy assistant secretary for China in the State Department, said that the Chinese were taken by surprise by how little has changed in the new administration. “There was an expectation between [Donald] Trump and [Joe] Biden, there would be a loosening of technology regulations,” he said, but Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has taken steps to tighten export restrictions that affect Huawei, and there have been actions under the new Information, Communications and Telecommunications Services (ICTS) regulations.
Toasts not Tariffs, a coalition of 48 trade groups in the liquor and wine industries, restaurants and retailers, wrote to the commerce and agriculture secretaries and the U.S. trade representative to urge them to convince the European Union and the United Kingdom to lift 25% tariffs on U.S. whiskey exports. The April 12 letter did not mention that those tariffs were in response to 25% tariffs on steel exports from the EU and the U.K., and that lifting the tariffs on steel would end tariffs on whiskey.