U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will meet with top government officials from countries participating in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity Sept. 8 in Los Angeles, USTR announced. This will be the first in-person meeting since the IPEF was launched. The ministers will talk about trade; supply chains; clean energy, decarbonization, and infrastructure; and tax and anti-corruption.
The U.S. and Taiwan this week agreed to soon begin trade talks under a new initiative aimed at increasing trade in goods and removing “discriminatory barriers,” the Office of U.S. Trade Representative said. The negotiations, which USTR said are set to begin “early this fall,” also will include discussions on trade facilitation measures, anti-corruption, agriculture, technology standards, digital trade, labor and non-market policies. The U.S. and Taiwan plan to “pursue an ambitious schedule” for the talks, Deputy USTR Sarah Bianchi said, adding the discussions will result in a “fairer, more prosperous and resilient 21st century economy.”
The State Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative soon will hold the 15th meeting of the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement Environmental Affairs Council, the agencies said in a notice this week. State and USTR are accepting written comments ahead of the public portion of the meeting, which will be held Oct. 7, 9 a.m. to noon. Confirmations of attendance and comments are due by Oct. 2.
The U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments at regulations.gov on what its officials should talk to Kenya about in the areas of:
Canada's trade minister, Mary Ng, announced that Canada will launch a USMCA dispute with the U.S. over the continued antidumping and countervailing duties on some Canadian softwood lumber exports.
Learn from the lessons of the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership, warned trade skeptics Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, in a letter they and other signatories released publicly Aug. 2. They said binding commitments in either the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, or reached with Latin American partners, are not legal without congressional say-so. "The administration’s many public declarations about the proposed IPEF process seem to indicate that it plans to negotiate a binding agreement while circumventing congressional input, authority, and approval," they wrote.
In filings at the USMCA Secretariat, Mexico and Canada say the Uniform Regulations for USMCA are clear, and say that " roll-up applies to the calculation of [regional value content] RVC for a vehicle. It obliges Parties to take 'no account' of the non-originating materials contained in an originating good when that good is used in the subsequent production of another good."
Although President Joe Biden criticized President Donald Trump's China tariffs on the campaign trail, Peterson Institute for International Economics Senior Fellow Chad Bown said he always thought it was unlikely Biden would roll any of them back, because there are "huge political costs" to doing so, because opponents could label you as "weak on China."
Senate Finance Committee members praised the experience of Doug McKalip, the administration's nominee to be chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. McKalip, a senior adviser on international trade policy and other matters to the agriculture secretary, is a career staffer at USDA.
Although climate advocate Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has hopes of introducing a bipartisan carbon border adjustment tax, he said it may take American exports being hit with carbon border tariffs in Europe to get Congress to move.