The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, in preparation for its April Special 301 Report on countries that don't provide adequate protection of intellectual property rights, is seeking comments as well as requests to testify at a Feb. 21 hearing.
Seventeen senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are asking the U.S. trade representative to reach "an expedited agreement with the European Union" so that tariffs don't return on exported whiskey Jan. 1. That tariff would be 50% under the schedule the EU imposed as retaliation for the Section 232 tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports.
More than 60 House members, led by senior Ways and Means Committee Democrat Rep. Mike Thompson of California and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to negotiate an end to China's retaliatory tariffs on American wine, and to negotiate lower tariffs in India and Vietnam, where American wine faces 150% and 50% tariffs, respectively.
The Biden administration should take several steps to boost U.S. agricultural exports, including by negotiating new free trade deals and better eliminating tariff and nontariff barriers, industry executives said during a President’s Export Council meeting this week. They also urged the administration to enforce existing trade agreements and more quickly make progress in reforming the World Trade Organization.
A USMCA dispute settlement panel ruled in Canada’s favor in a much-awaited second decision on Canada’s dairy tariff rate quotas, according to a report released by the panel on Nov. 24.
Dispute settlement understanding talks among World Trade Organization members has been very "intense," though the large issues remain unresolved, Maria Pagan, deputy U.S. trade representative and chief of mission in the Geneva office, said Nov. 20. Speaking at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the upcoming 13th Ministerial Conference, Pagan said discussions started by acknowledging the different parties' interests as opposed to putting text on the table and hashing out the deal.
A joint statement by the leaders of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework countries said the trade pillar has made progress, and the White House said they will continue negotiations "to facilitate trade, advance workers’ rights through strong and enforceable labor standards, strengthen environmental protections, align our regulatory procedures, promote a fair and inclusive digital economy, deepen our technical assistance and economic cooperation, and advance inclusivity in our trade policy."
The leaders of the Senate Finance Committee introduced a bill that would require USDA and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to produce annual reports identifying the acts, policies or practices that create significant barriers to exports of U.S. fruits and vegetables or distort their own markets so that U.S. fruits, vegetables, nuts and flowers cannot be competitive.
The trade pillar of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which already was being criticized for not being ambitious enough, is not going to be finished as quickly as the pillars run by the Commerce Department on tax and corruption, supply chains and climate, the administration acknowledged as Asian leaders meet in San Francisco.
Mary Thornton, former head of trade and export controls policy at Amazon Web Services, joined the Semiconductor Industry Association as vice president of global policy, SIA announced Nov. 2. Thornton will lead SIA’s global trade and economic security policy initiatives. Before joining Amazon, she was a senior trade negotiator with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, where she served as the U.S. trade attache to the World Trade Organization.