Some supply chain agreements in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework may be announced in May, according to officials at the Asia Society Policy Institute, and the institute held a webinar May 3 and released a paper with recommendations of how to shape the supply chain pillar ahead of those announcements.
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 Senate will work over the next several months to build a bill Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sees as a sequel to its China package -- also known as the Chips Act -- that could expand China-related export controls and investment restrictions.
Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng said that Canada and its partners in NAFTA 2.0 will not be caught unawares when it's time for the sunset review in 2026. She said that she and her counterparts in Mexico and the U.S. will be taking stock of how the agreement is working in July.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the length of time the White House has been considering a set of outbound investment regulations without releasing a plan isn't "because we're lazy, or we're not doing the work," but because it's difficult to find a solution "that is sustainable and effective."
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, speaking from Asia, where she had just finished a round of meetings with Philippine and Japanese officials, said the U.S.-China trade war did not come up in her meetings, as these visits focused much more on the bilateral trade and economic relationship.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, whose agency is negotiating three of four pillars of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, said: "We believe that this year we will be able to finalize the IPEF."
A letter signed by all the freshmen Democrats in the House of Representatives lauds President Joe Biden's new stance on trade.
European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said last week that with the staggering costs of rebuilding Ukraine after the invasion and indiscriminate shelling and bombing by Russian forces, the EU is doing legal analysis on how it could use "confiscated Russian assets," whether seized or frozen, to help pay for Ukraine's reconstruction.
About 10% of critical raw materials, as measured by value, faced export restrictions in the last decade, according to a new report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development -- and the use of restrictions grew five-fold in the 2017-2019 period, compared with the two-year period 10 years earlier. Export taxes are the most frequent restriction, the authors said, adding: "This may be related to the fact that, under WTO rules, quantitative restrictions on exports are generally prohibited while export taxes are not."
In more than four hours of questioning during a hearing March 24 before the House Ways and Means Committee, no member of Congress advocated for lessening tariffs on Chinese goods under Section 301, or for reopening exclusions applications.