U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she had an informal dialogue about the World Trade Organization dispute settlement system with representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, India and South Africa. Tai was in Bali, Indonesia, for a G-20 trade ministers meeting, and the discussion happened on the sidelines of that meeting.
Margaret Cekuta, a former chief of staff to the U.S. trade representative general counsel, has been hired as senior director for trade and innovation policy at the National Foreign Trade Council. Her portfolio will include intellectual property, digital trade, environment and health, and she will lead on NFTC engagement in the Indo-Pacific.
Talk of a potential “early harvest” partial deal on trade from Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) talks is a “little premature,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said during a call with reporters early on Sept. 19. In Cambodia for talks with Association of Southeast Asian Nations ministers, Tai said the U.S. is “coming into this with a lot of ambition, and again, a lot of motivation,” and is focused on making sure “that we are engaging robustly across all components of the trade pillar because all of them are important.” Tai said it remains to be seen “just how fast we can get to our deliverables,” but that the U.S. is “focused on speed, agility, and also on being practical.”
Despite the fact that the administration has not opened any formal free trade agreement negotiations in two years, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman said he's confident a trade agreement can be reached with Taiwan.
Electric vehicle manufacturing and supply chain resilience in semiconductors continued as major topics in the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Economic Dialogue, and pharmaceutical supply chain resilience is now also on the agenda, according to a joint statement after the HLED in Mexico City Sept. 12.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. believes that a way to preserve the economic benefits of chemical plants and also fight climate change is to impose a carbon border adjustment tax on certain goods.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai frequently talks about the need for a smarter globalization, which she calls Globalization 2.0, which is more resilient and more environmentally sustainable.
India chose not to sign onto the trade pillar in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which focuses on digital trade, trade facilitation, science-based sanitary and phytosanitary rules, trade in environmental goods, and laws to protect labor rights.
The Senate Finance Committee voted unanimously to approve the nomination of Doug McKalip to be chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The full Senate must vote on his nomination before he can start the job.
Trade facilitation -- or how customs is administered -- and digital trade practices are non-tariff barriers that the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework can tackle, and therefore help U.S. exporters, particularly small businesses. That was the message from a senior official at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which is managing one of the four pillars of the IPEF.