Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, told International Trade Today that the fact that the House of Representatives already passed two spending packages complicates his desire to attach trade preferences to a spending bill, but that it is not necessarily an insurmountable hurdle. Both bills, which fund a number of departments through Sept. 30, must pass both chambers before Jan. 30. The Senate voted on the first of the two packages -- which funds Commerce Department, the International Trade Commission, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative -- a few hours after Crapo spoke. That leaves only one funding bill that could serve as a vehicle for the trade bills.
Witnesses at a House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee hearing about digital trade and international protections of intellectual property rights praised the Trump administration's work on maintaining a moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, such as music downloads, streaming films and software.
Public comments submitted to the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee's Jan. 14 meeting were supportive of the committee's recommendations calling for CBP to release clearer and additional guidance on how importers can comply with Section 232 tariffs (see 2601120017), particularly when it comes to the valuation of steel and aluminum content.
Certain advanced chips -- including the NVIDIA H200 and AMD MI325X, a White House fact sheet said -- will be subject to 25% Section 232 tariffs starting Jan. 15, but a broad array of domestic uses of those chips are carved out from the action.
Certain advanced chips, whose parameters are described in the annex to a presidential proclamation, will be subject to 25% tariffs starting Jan. 15, but a broad array of domestic uses are carved out of the Section 232 action.
South Korea's trade minister is in Washington to meet with members of Congress and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to try to calm tensions over a recent law passed in South Korea on data privacy, a Korean newspaper reported.
While the Venezuela military action doesn't affect trade substantially, a panel of experts said the fallout with regard to President Donald Trump's comments about Greenland afterward could "blow up the U.S.-EU deal."
Nathaniel Moulton left his position last week as an information and communications technology specialist within the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration, he announced on LinkedIn. Moulton first joined Commerce in 2024 in the Office of Information and Communication Technologies, where he said he worked to "grow the U.S. quantum computing ecosystem and strengthen U.S. supply chain resilience." He also had a stint in 2021-2022 in policy coordination with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act and the Haiti Economic Lift Program Extension Act (Haiti HELP) are scheduled to get floor votes next week through the suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority for passage. Both trade preferences expired Oct. 1.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released the U.S. dollar procurement thresholds it will allow from foreign firms under the World Trade Organization agreement on procurement, United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement, the United States-Morocco Free Trade Agreement, the United States-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement and the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.