As momentum seems to build in the Senate to rein in Section 232 tariffs, steel company CEOs told a sympathetic group of Congress members that the tariffs are working to increase domestic producers' market share and increase profits as well as employment numbers and pay for steelworkers. "The U.S. steel industry is still vulnerable. Now is not the time to blink," U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt said. Section 232 tariffs or a hard quota "must continue to be applied to all steel-producing countries, especially the top import sources. If the Section 232 doesn't apply everywhere, it's nowhere as border leaks will continue from global excess capacity."
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.
Two Ohio Democrats who voted against the original NAFTA -- Rep. Marcy Kaptur and Sen. Sherrod Brown -- have clearly not been won over by the efforts of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to satisfy union autoworkers that the revised deal will stop the flow of jobs to Mexico. According to the Ohio state government, auto parts, auto manufacturing, and RV, tire and trailer manufacturing jobs employed more than 107,000 workers in 2019 -- though that included 1,700 who just lost their jobs at GM's Lordstown plant. That closure follows more than 38,500 jobs lost in the industry in the state between 2007 and 2009.
After 25 Republican House members met with President Donald Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to talk about how to ratify the new NAFTA, Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., said on Fox Business News March 26 that he thinks Congress can do it before the August recess.
While a few Democrats on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee defended NAFTA's benefits, the largest segment of the Democrats at a March 26 hearing on trade and labor rules enforcement -- including the chairman -- agreed with union witnesses' arguments that the new NAFTA cannot help American workers unless negotiations are reopened. Shane Larson, the political director for the Communications Workers of America, talked about the job losses his members face when call centers go to Mexico and the Philippines. "The labor chapter is an improvement on the current NAFTA," he acknowledged, where it is a side letter. But, he said, "The enforcement piece is not there and that’s why we have to go back to the table. I know the administration has said, 'We can’t do that. We can’t do that.'
For months, Democrats have said that the 10-year biologics exclusivity period in the new NAFTA is a reason to reject it. A few days ago, House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said it is one of the reasons he doesn't want to advance the treaty (see 1903250061). The U.S. gives biologic drug developers 12 years of data exclusivity, and the new NAFTA requires that all three countries provide 10 years of exclusivity. Currently, Canada provides eight years, and Mexico, five. During negotiations, two California Democrats, along with two Republicans, urged the U.S. trade representative to convince Canada and Mexico to grant 12 years' exclusivity, to preserve the U.S. biologic drug industry's economic position.
A bipartisan bill was recently introduced in the Senate to expand the Food and Drug Administration's oversight of cosmetics. The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has been introduced in past Congresses, without advancing. In the House, new Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., has had an interest in dangerous additives to imported cosmetics (see 1802020044 and 1708020028), and is working on a bill to expand the FDA's authority on cosmetics.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, the new chairman of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, told fair trade and health activists in Oregon that he's not comfortable advancing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement the way it's written now. Blumenauer, D-Ore., held a town hall March 21, which was attended by members of Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, health care unions and other liberal groups, according to a blog post by the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign.
President Donald Trump said European officials have offered to drop their 10 percent tariffs on cars if the U.S. drops its 2.5 percent tariffs on cars and its 25 percent tariffs on light trucks. But he declined the offer. "I wouldn't do that deal," he said. "I would do it for certain products, not for cars." He said it's not a good deal because "a Chevrolet will never sell like a Mercedes does here."
Businesses and interest groups have until April 18 to petition the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to modify the Generalized System of Preferences eligibility of any country; to request a waiver of competitive need limitations or continuation of a CNL over the threshold; to add or remove a product to GSP eligibility; to ask USTR to deny a de minimis waiver; and to ask USTR to redesignate an excluded product. The deadline was announced March 22, but it will be officially published in the Federal Register on March 25.
A dozen senators, led by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., Doug Jones, D-Ala., and Angus King, I-Maine, have asked Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to respond by early next month to follow-up questions they had after a staff briefing on the Section 232 auto report that has remained secret since it was given to President Donald Trump last month.