Mara Lee

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said that a NAFTA agreement in principle is not enough to start the clock toward a ratification vote under Trade Promotion Authority. The law says the earliest Congress can vote to approve or reject the deal is 90 days after the president announces his intention to sign the deal. But if there is any change to Chapter 19, Congress and the public must have a minimum of 180 days to examine it. Either timeline cannot begin just from a press release or memo. "The text needs to be generally ready for the public to be able to review [for that period] before the president can sign it and send it to us," Brady told reporters on April 10.

China says that the U.S. decision to levy 25 percent tariffs on imported steel from some parts of the world, and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum, was not fair and impartial, and also violated World Trade Organization agreements by not treating all nations in the WTO equally with regard to the tariffs. Under WTO rules, countries are not allowed to raise tariffs above bound rates on some countries but not others in most circumstances. The U.S. used the Section 232 national security exemption from that rule, but China dismisses that assertion, and says that these tariffs are safeguards in disguise. Earlier, China asked for consultations on compensation for the safeguard tariffs (see 1803260025), and this latest request for consultations, posted April 10, tackles the legality of the action. China says the U.S. ignored the rules on how to implement safeguard tariffs. Those rules say that a country has to prove a surge in imports is harming or will harm domestic producers. The U.S. has already responded to China's earlier request for consultations by saying that these are not safeguard tariffs.

The European Union and Japan would like to join the negotiations with the U.S., as the World Trade Organization attempts to tackle the problem of forced joint ventures, tech transfer and other violations of intellectual property rights in China. The EU wrote that its members export 680 billion euros' worth of high tech products and services, and that protecting intellectual property rights is fundamentally important for that business. It also noted that it has 180 billion euros in investment in China. "Much of the investments are concluded under joint-venture requirements," according to the document, submitted April 5.

President Donald Trump tasked the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative with looking at adding another $100 billion in Chinese goods to the $50 billion already identified as part of the Section 301 investigation. "Rather than remedy its misconduct, China has chosen to harm our farmers and manufacturers," the White House said in a release. USTR promptly responded that tripling the size of the tariffs is appropriate, and promised to assemble a list. "Any additional tariffs proposed will be subject to a similar public comment process as the proposed tariffs" announced on April 3 and "no tariffs will go into effect until the respective process is completed," the agency said.

China disputed the legality of the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum at the World Trade Organization (see 1803260025), and now the U.S. is disputing both the characterization of those tariffs and how China has responded to them. The tariffs were for national security, and not to protect domestic industry from rising imports, asserted Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Dennis Shea, ambassador to the WTO. China's decision on April 2 to implement tariffs on pork, aluminum scrap and other U.S. exports were not justified, Shea wrote in a letter to China's WTO ambassador, since China can only use the safeguards to respond to safeguards, and the U.S. measures were not safeguards. "China has asserted no other justification for the measures, and the United States is aware of none," he wrote. "Therefore, it appears that China's actions have no basis under WTO rules."

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has said he hopes to reshape NAFTA in a way that appeals to both Democrats and Republicans. Some of the most prominent critics in the House of Representatives on NAFTA said April 5 that while they appreciate some of his positions, he has a long way to go to convince them.

Hours after the U.S. put out its draft list of tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods (see 1804030055), China said it may impose tariffs on $50 billion worth of U.S. imports, including certain narrow-body and corporate jets, cars, SUVs, soybeans, beef, wheat, whiskey and chemicals. Trade lawyers and lobbyists and China economic experts didn't agree on much, but most expect that a negotiated settlement will not be reached in time to stop the tariffs.

China will respond proportionately to any U.S. tariffs implemented as part of the Section 301 investigation, Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai said while speaking on an English-language Chinese television station on April 2. If the U.S. does add tariffs as a result of that investigation as expected, "we will certainly take countermeasures of the same proportion, and of the same scale, same intensity," he said. The White House said the total value of goods subject to levies will be $50 billion (see 1803220034). Cui emphasized that the latest tariffs on U.S. imports (see 1804020009) were solely in response to the tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Parties that wish to add to or remove products from the Generalized System of Preferences, change the GSP status of beneficiary countries, waive competitive need limitations, or oppose de minimis waivers must file their petitions with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative by midnight on April 16, the agency said in a notice. If an importer is interested in retaining GSP status for a product on the de minimis list -- a product for which total imports from all countries did not exceed $23.5 million in 2017 -- the importer does not need to make a request for a waiver. However, parties that wish to contest a de minimis waiver should do so at regulations.gov.

China raised tariffs on April 2 on all 128 U.S. products it identified in recent weeks after saying it would implement the safeguard tariffs in two phases (see 1803230008). Scrap aluminum and pork is now subject to a 15 percent tariff, while six other higher volume exports will be subject to 25 percent tariffs. "There are multiple commodities that will be affected by the trade war that’s starting," said Randy Goodman, executive vice president of scrap metal trading firm Greenland America.