Two longtime career staffers at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative have been nominated for deputy USTR positions. Maria Pagán, the deputy general counsel at the agency, has been chosen to serve as ambassador to the World Trade Organization. According to an announcement from the White House, Pagán handled the implementation package for USMCA and was the lead lawyer in the USMCA negotiation. USTR Katherine Tai said, "María Pagán has proven to be a shrewd negotiator with an unparalleled knowledge of our trade agreements that will serve the United States well as we re-establish relationships with our trading partners and work to reform the World Trade Organization."
USMCA
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement is a free trade agreement between the three countries, also known as CUSMA in Canada and T-MEC in Mexico. Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2020, the agreement contains a unique sunset provision where, after six years (in 2026), any of the three parties may decide not to continue the agreement in its current form and begin a period of up to 10 years where USMCA provisions may be renegotiated.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Aug. 2-6 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
CBP's proposed use of Part 102 marking rules to determine the country of origin for nonpreferential claims and procurement under USMCA (see 2107010045) should be made optional for importers or withdrawn by the agency, Cisco and the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) said in comments recently filed in the docket. While CBP says the use of tariff shift rules should result in the same origin finding as the alternative “case-by-case” review, “in practice there are cases where the two methods yield different origin determinations,” CompTIA said in its comments. “This is particularly the case with technology products where programming or software can have an impact on substantial transformation. The Part 102 rules consider only a tariff shift of hardware components and ignore any impact of programming and software on substantial transformation.”
While grain-oriented electrical steel is subject to Section 232 tariffs, the domestic GOES producer says that electrical steel laminations and cores produced in Mexico and Canada continue to imperil the jobs at their mills. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., represent the workers at those mills, and they, along with Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., have proposed an amendment to the bipartisan infrastructure bill that would instruct the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to negotiate with Canada and Mexico in order to get them to agree to measures curtailing their exports if they are so numerous that they damage the business of Cleveland-Cliffs.
CBP will allow another 30 days of public comments on CBP's proposed use of Part 102 marking rules to determine the country of origin for nonpreferential claims under USMCA (see 2107010045), the agency said in a notice released Aug. 4. Comments on the proposal were previously due Aug. 5, but after receiving requests to extend the deadline, CBP moved the due date to Sept. 7, it said.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from July 26-30 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The National Association of Manufacturers would like more time to consider the impacts of CBP's proposed use of Part 102 marking rules to determine the country of origin for non-preferential claims under USMCA (see 2107010045) before filing comments, it said in a July 30 filing filing in the docket. "The NAM has been fielding inquiries from manufacturers that are trying to understand the implications of this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking," the trade group said. "If implemented, this change could have significant impacts across manufacturing sectors, and we want to ensure that manufacturers are able to provide CBP with constructive input given the highly technical nature of the proposed change. In order for manufacturers to assess fully the potential impacts of this change and to provide meaningful feedback to CBP, the NAM respectfully requests at least a 30-day extension to the deadline for public comments." Comments on the proposal are currently due Aug. 5.
The shift from NAFTA to USMCA has been taxing for vehicle manufacturing sector companies, panelists on a KPMG seminar said about the trade deal, one year in. But for Georgia-Pacific, compliance is simpler after the rewrite. Myesha Cottom, director of international trade at Georgia-Pacific, said that getting rid of the template for NAFTA goods and going to minimum data elements means less administrative burden. "I’m optimistic that the administrative burden will continue to decrease," she said during the July 28 webinar.
Mexico's economy secretary met with trade leaders in Congress from both parties, and with auto groups, to argue that U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai's interpretation of auto rules of origin is counterproductive (see 2107230026), but lawmakers don't necessarily agree.
Although there were some specific complaints about how USMCA has gone in its first year -- especially what witnesses and senators said was an anemic effort to get Mexico to change its stance on genetically modified agricultural crops -- much of the hearing in the Senate Finance Committee on July 27 explored how USMCA should be seen as a model for future trade agreements.