Countries in the Five Eyes Alliance, plus Japan, have issued a joint declaration on non-market practices and trade related economic coercion that they say "undermine the functioning of and confidence in the rules-based multilateral trading system by distorting trade, investment, and competition and harming relations between countries."
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.
Just after the administration asked the International Trade Commission to examine the emissions intensity of the steel and aluminum sectors, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the Senate to tell the Energy Department to conduct a comprehensive study of the emissions from the production of aluminum, cement, iron and steel, plastic, and products made from all those materials, fertilizer, glass, lithium-ion batteries, paper and pulp, solar panels and cells, wind turbines, crude oil, refined oil products, natural gas, hydrogen, refined critical minerals and uranium.
Although the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade does not change tariffs, and therefore the administration says no legislative approval is needed, the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate committees that deal with trade have introduced a bill that would give it congressional approval.
Think tank scholars said the World Trade Organization isn't well suited to deal with technology sharing restrictions, but that the G-7 and coordinated bilateral actions have been effective so far.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai asked the International Trade Commission to produce a report on the greenhouse gas emissions in the domestic steel and aluminum sectors, "which will help to inform discussions with the European Union regarding the Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum."
Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., and 20 other members of the House of Representatives, mostly from the Midwest, asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to make the ethanol export market in Brazil a priority, because Brazil has both non-tariff barriers and tariffs on U.S. ethanol exports.
A joint letter from U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to the Senate Finance Committee chairman defended their efforts to engage with Congress as they negotiate the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
The U.S. asked for formal dispute settlement consultations with Mexico over its policies on biotech products, but did not commit to moving forward with a panel request if the consultations are not fruitful within 75 days. That's the earliest a panel could be requested under USMCA.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-Minn., and 62 other Republican members, including Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to open a formal dispute under USMCA over Mexico's treatment of biotech corn imports.
The EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council agreed on export control and investment screening concepts, but no specific policies were arrived at during the fourth meeting of the group that ended May 31 in Sweden.