U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commissioner Kimberly Glas, calling e-commerce "a superhighway of the Wild West," asked witnesses at a hearing on Chinese exports and product safety if de minimis is a major contributor to unsafe products.
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.
The top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said that he thinks a renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program can get through Congress in the next three months.
President Joe Biden said a regulatory effort from the Commerce Department to curtail the use of software, sensors and cameras in automobiles made by Chinese firms is one of the actions the administration is taking "to make sure the future of the auto industry will be made here in America with American workers."
Mexican Economy Secretary Raquel Buenrostro said in Mexico this week that if the U.S. reimposes 25% tariffs on Mexican steel exports over alleged surges, Mexico will retaliate. Mexico's steel exports are only 2.5% of the U.S. market, and U.S. steel exports are 14% of the Mexican market, so the U.S. has more to lose if Section 232 tariffs on Mexican steel return, she said.
Sen. Josh Hawley wants the baseline tariff on cars made by Chinese companies to be 100%, not 2.5%, and to apply whether those cars are assembled in China, Thailand, Brazil, Hungary or Mexico.
A CBP headquarters official, chosen to help shape national policy on de minimis, said that while the trade community welcomed the opportunity for electronic clearance of packages that require partner government agency review, importers are often not following the reasonable care standard required for Type 86 entries. The Type 86 test is for packages that are low enough value to avoid duties under the de minimis statute, but are not eligible for de minimis because they contain goods that PGAs inspect. If importers participate in the test -- and there were more than 623 million packages last fiscal year that were covered -- they must provide a 10-digit Harmonized Tarff Schedule code.
Allowing large numbers of electric vehicles from Chinese companies assembled in Mexico would be an "extinction event," warned the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a nonprofit co-founded by large domestic manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., said both retroactivity and the length of renewal are being debated as lawmakers try to reach consensus on re-authorizing the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program.
Sens. Ted Budd, R-N.C., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., have sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai urging them to take action to “immediately and meaningfully limit the volume of Mexican steel concrete reinforcing bar (rebar) being imported into the United States.”
The top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee said that getting Chinese shipments banned from the de minimis program is how he'd like to close out his congressional career. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., is retiring at the end of 2024. "I think we will see this moving forward, if only for the animus toward China" in Congress, he said.