U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai held a video call with Peter Altmaier, Germany's federal minister for economics, and they discussed the challenge of unfair trading practices of large non-market economies, such as China. “They also discussed their strong interest in resolving the dispute related to large civil aircraft subsidies, addressing global steel and aluminum overcapacity, and cooperating on climate change,” according to the summary of the March 24 call.
The American Farm Bureau Federation, along with meat, dairy, corn, soybean and other exporters from 27 organizations in all are telling Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai that the agriculture trade relationship with Mexico “has declined markedly, a trend USMCA’s implementation has not reversed.” They said in a March 22 letter that they're particularly concerned about the glyphosate ban and the ban on genetically modified corn for human consumption; mandatory Conformity Assessment Procedures for cheeses; and the requirement for organic foods to be certified under Mexican standards by June. “This is an extraordinarily short timeline for implementation. If this policy is enforced, U.S organic producers will experience significant trade disruptions as certification can take a year or more for organic companies to become certified to a new organic standard,” they wrote.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai opened her first full week on the job with a series of video calls with major allies and trading partners -- Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union -- and diplomatic summaries of the calls from both sides mostly echoed each other, suggesting there was a good deal of agreement.
A top European Commission trade official said that it's not reasonable to expect that countries can agree on reforms to dispute settlement that would satisfy the U.S. by November this year. So, Ignacio Garcia Bercero said, countries will need to set a goal of restoring the binding dispute settlement system for the 2023 ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization. “The WTO without binding dispute settlement is not the WTO,” Garcia Bercero said during a presentation online at the Peterson Institute for International Economics on March 19. “The continued escalation of conflicts if we don’t have a functioning dispute settlement system should be something we should all be worried about.”
A former World Trade Organization appellate body member and a longtime U.S. trade representative's environment advisory committee member agree that an attempt to create a carbon adjustment mechanism by the European Union is likely to violate trade law and support protectionist aims.
House Ways and Means Committee chief trade counsel Katherine Tai was confirmed by the Senate as U.S. trade representative on March 17, by a 98-0 vote. Politicians from both parties, trade skeptics and export-focused trade associations all hailed her promotion to the Biden administration Cabinet. She is the first woman of color to be USTR.
The Senate approved House Ways and Means Chief Trade Counsel Katherine Tai to be the U.S. Trade Representative with no opposition. The Senate voted 98-0 in favor of the confirmation.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., filed a motion to end debate on the nomination of Katherine Tai to be the next U.S. trade representative, which means a vote will come next week on the floor of the Senate. No date for the vote has been set yet.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments on the complaint that Hong Kong has raised at the World Trade Organization by April 12. The territory of Hong Kong has said that the U.S. is breaking WTO rules by requiring that exporters mark goods from Hong Kong as Made in China, rather than Made in Hong Kong. The U.S. issued an executive order last year making the change because of China's political crackdown against Hong Kong. The marking rule does not affect tariff treatment (see 2008130028).
The European Union and U.S. have moved closer to each other's positions on World Trade Organization reform, panelists on a webinar agreed, but that's not to say it's going to be quick or easy to get the appellate body restarted.