Senate Appropriators Fully Fund USTR, ITC; Require Reports on Solar Panel AD/CVD, EVs

Senate appropriators marked up a bill that would spend $2 million more a year on the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and $4.1 million more on the International Trade Commission, in each case matching the president's budget request.

This contrasts with House appropriators' $6 million cut from current levels at USTR, and $7 million cut at the ITC (see 2406250063)

The Appropriations Committee's report on the bills, published last week, also asserts some policy preferences. They said they want ITC commissioner vacancies "filled promptly with qualified nominees."

They asked the USTR to increase duties on Chinese indium phosphide, packaged optical modules, and finished goods (optical transceivers), under Section 301 or otherwise, and directed it "to consider the impact of imports of these products from the PRC on the domestic supply chain as part of its ongoing supply chain resiliency initiative."

The bill directs USTR to study Chinese automakers' expansion outside China, such as Mexico or "other strategic locations to sidestep U.S. tariffs." It said it wants to know how countries' subsidies, low-interest loans, subsidies, licensing arrangements and non-market excess capacity could lead to a surge of electric vehicle imports, and asked that the findings be reported within 180 days of the bill's enactment.

This bill doesn't cover DHS, but does cover the Commerce Department, which put a freeze on antidumping and countervailing duty deposits for solar panels from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. As part of that pause, the administration said panels imported during the two-year pause would need to be installed within 180 days of the return of AD/CVD deposits (see 2402060037). The committee asked Commerce and CBP to report on how they're enforcing those utilization requirements and duty collection within 120 days of the bill's enactment.