Rep. Suzan DelBene, chair of the generally pro-trade New Democrat Coalition, told a webinar audience that reaching an international agreement to lower tariffs on environmental goods and services would be good for U.S. companies, since the U.S. has lower tariffs on these goods than the European Union and China. She said that the European Union and China both export more environmental goods than the U.S. does.
The bipartisan infrastructure package that passed the House Nov. 6 will dedicate $17.4 billion to ports, Coast Guard facilities, inland waterways, and land ports of entry, and flood and environmental projects from the Army Corps of Engineers, with much of the funds expected to be spent over a three- to five-year horizon.
Ahead of a planned trip to India Nov. 22 by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, the Alliance for Trade Enforcement is asking her to make sure that the U.S.-India Trade Policy Forum "eliminates significant trade barriers in India to expand economic opportunities for U.S. workers and businesses."
Bernd Lange, chair of the European Union parliament's committee on trade, said that though it may be tricky to do so -- given that the EU and other countries have different ways of encouraging cleaner industry -- the EU's proposed carbon border adjustment measure should not be a way to just hike tariffs. "We have to avoid trade wars," he said to reporters in Washington Nov. 4. He said if another country does not have a cap and trade system and doesn't have a price on carbon, that doesn't mean they don't have climate change measures. "So we need to find equivalencies," he said.
President Joe Biden said that the agreement to lift 25% tariffs on European steel and 10% tariffs on European aluminum and replace them with tariff rate quotas "immediately removes tariffs" in the European Union on a range of American products. However, the removal is not so immediate. The member states will have to vote on removing the tariffs before they are lifted, according to an EU spokesperson.
A European Union official said that even once the bloc passes its Carbon Border Adjustment Measure, "that definitely doesn’t preclude joint work on international coordination" on preventing manufacturing from moving to countries that aren't as ambitious in fighting climate change.
Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., told U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai that she should talk to Chinese officials about that country's decision to buy medical devices based on the lowest price. The two sent a letter Oct. 26 that said before the volume-based procurement rules came into effect, the U.S. exported $6 billion annually in medical devices to China and imported not much more from China in that category. "The medical device industry employs over 400,000 Americans and pays on average 28% higher wages than other manufacturing jobs. Given the importance of this industry to our country’s economy, we must pursue policies that hold China accountable for deliberate actions that harm our job creators and employees. China keeping the current structure of the VBP in place will have ripple effects in communities supported heavily by the medical device industry and could jeopardize access to life-saving products made through cutting-edge technologies," they said.
Although it's not known what sort of electric vehicle purchase incentives might be included in Build Back Better legislation, Canada and Mexico are arguing to congressional leaders that offering larger tax credits for U.S.-assembled electric vehicles hurts both the integrated North American auto industry and undermines the USMCA.
Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for the Western Hemisphere Daniel Watson and Andrés Cárdenas Muñoz, Colombia's vice minister of foreign trade, directed their customs and trade facilitation teams to have another discussion on lessons learned and future plans "especially with regard to the digitalization of customs procedures," according to a USTR readout of the Oct. 22 meeting.
Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., opened up a discussion on a recent report on targeted decoupling based on risk, with a focus on artificial intelligence, at a virtual event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Oct. 22. Hill said the discussion was "long overdue," and that China's direction is "squarely in conflict with the global order, balance of power in East Asia, and the continued open, market-based trading system."