Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said no decision has been made yet on whether there will be an executive order limiting outbound investment in China. "It's still something being discussed in the administration and the timing of it is not yet certain," she said on "Face the Nation" from China, before she returned from a diplomatic visit there. "But I wanted to explain to my Chinese counterparts that if we go forward with this executive order, that we will do so in a transparent and narrowly targeted way." She said what's being considered is only for "very narrow high technology areas," and should not significantly impact overall investment in China.
Canada and Mexico talked about the panel ruling on auto rules of origin -- a decision that went their way but that the U.S. has chosen not to implement -- and Canada brought up the issue with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai as well, according to readouts from Mexico and Canada about the bilateral meetings July 6 ahead of the official Free Trade Commission meeting in Cancun, Mexico.
Sixteen trade groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, PhRMA and BIO, asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to press Mexico to comply with its USMCA commitments during her trip to Mexico for the Free Trade Commission meeting.
One of the leaders in the move to pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act recently introduced a new bill that would require the administration to produce an annual report on foreign persons "found facilitating the exploitation of child labor" in the mining sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and would instruct the administration to impose sanctions on those individuals.
Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., are asking their colleagues to vote to encourage the administration to negotiate with other countries to lower or eliminate tariffs on pharmaceutical products and medical devices, and the U.S. would do the same. Their bill authorizes these sorts of changes.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Deputy USTR Jayme White headed to Cancun, Mexico, to meet with Mexican Economy Secretary Raquel Buenrostro and Canada's trade minister, Mary Ng, ahead of the official USMCA Free Trade Commission meeting on July 6.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and the committee's top Republican, Mike Crapo of Idaho, asked President Joe Biden to press India on an array of trade irritants for U.S. exporters, including sanitary and phytosanitary restrictions that discriminate against growers, restrictions on biotechnology, and high tariffs on agriculture imports, including "apples, blueberries, cherries, dairy, nuts, pears, chickpeas, lentils, potatoes, and alcoholic beverages."
Even as Europe comes to see China as a systemic rival, the entanglement of the German and Chinese economies continues unabated, and what "de-risking" should look like is hotly contested, witnesses told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission at a hearing late last week.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said advocates for free trade agreements who argue that 95% of customers are outside our borders are myopic.
The chairmen of the House Small Business Committee and the House Select Committee on China are asking for a detailed briefing by the end of June on DOJ's efforts to combat Chinese intellectual property theft.