The U.S. and India announced a deal June 22 that will end India’s retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. goods while leaving in place the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs that prompted them, and also end six World Trade Organization disputes brought by both the U.S. and India.
The U.S. and Mexico have been consulting about U.S. complaints about favoritism to Mexican energy providers for 11 months, with no public movement toward a dispute settlement panel, and Karen Antebi, a former NAFTA negotiator, said she doesn't expect that to change in the next year.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said advocates for free trade agreements who argue that 95% of customers are outside our borders are myopic.
A bill that approves the Taiwan trade initiative, but says it cannot take effect until the administration submits an economic analysis of its effects and answers questions from Congress on implementation, passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee on a 42-0 vote.
Just after the administration asked the International Trade Commission to examine the emissions intensity of the steel and aluminum sectors, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the Senate to tell the Energy Department to conduct a comprehensive study of the emissions from the production of aluminum, cement, iron and steel, plastic, and products made from all those materials, fertilizer, glass, lithium-ion batteries, paper and pulp, solar panels and cells, wind turbines, crude oil, refined oil products, natural gas, hydrogen, refined critical minerals and uranium.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai asked the International Trade Commission to produce a report on the greenhouse gas emissions in the domestic steel and aluminum sectors, "which will help to inform discussions with the European Union regarding the Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum."
Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., and 20 other members of the House of Representatives, mostly from the Midwest, asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to make the ethanol export market in Brazil a priority, because Brazil has both non-tariff barriers and tariffs on U.S. ethanol exports.
As part of the phase one trade agreement, China agreed to allow imports of chicken on a state-by-state basis after avian influenza cases, as long as 90 days had passed since the last case, and disinfection protocols had been completed.
A joint letter from U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to the Senate Finance Committee chairman defended their efforts to engage with Congress as they negotiate the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
The U.S. asked for formal dispute settlement consultations with Mexico over its policies on biotech products, but did not commit to moving forward with a panel request if the consultations are not fruitful within 75 days. That's the earliest a panel could be requested under USMCA.