Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with U.K. Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds and the British prime minister's Special Adviser on Business and Investment Varun Chandra on March 18 to discuss a potential bilateral trade deal, the Commerce Department announced. The meeting follows U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's visit to the White House last month. Lutnick expressed the Trump administration's desire for a trade deal, and Commerce said efforts to develop it "will continue to unfold over the coming days and weeks."
A State Department notice declaring that all agency efforts to control international trade now constitute a "foreign affairs function" of the U.S. under the Administrative Procedure Act will ultimately be subject to the discretion of the courts, trade lawyers told us.
The EU and Canada announced retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. this week, targeting billions of dollars' worth of American exports in response to what they said were unjustified global 25% steel and aluminum duties imposed by the Trump administration. Other nations also criticized the U.S. tariffs as they mulled countermeasures of their own.
The Trump administration appears likely to ramp up export controls against China with an aim of decoupling, two former senior U.S. economic officials said.
Jamieson Greer, the former chief of staff to the U.S. trade representative during the first Trump administration, was confirmed by the Senate on Feb. 26, with a 56-43 vote. Five Democrats supported him, including both Michigan senators and Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and John Hickenlooper of Colorado. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted no.
The U.S. government is considering requiring a small proportion of exported goods, both containerized and not, and including liquified natural gas, to be carried on U.S.-flagged ships by U.S. operators, with the proportion climbing over time, and, eventually, with U.S.-built ships also required.
Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., reintroduced a bill Feb. 7 that would control exports of certain “national interest technology or intellectual property” to China.
After losing a USMCA dispute panel ruling on its measures to phase out genetically modified corn and crops treated with the herbicide glyphosate, Mexico announced this week it is repealing the decrees that addressed those issues.
Jamieson Greer, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, endorsed U.S. outbound investment restrictions against China during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Feb. 6.
Rep. Linda Sánchez, D-Calif., who joined the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee in 2021, is the new ranking member, following Rep. Earl Blumenauer's retirement.