Evidence continues to pour in that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can’t do its job against the daily tidal wave of small packages sent from abroad. CBP has warned for years that “the increase in small packages is permitting bad actors to operate with relative impunity.” However advocates for the lawlessness, namely express shippers…
Last week, President Biden’s U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Tai, took a shellacking from U.S. Senators who oversee her office. The first was from her fellow Democrat, U.S. Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR), who issued a statement saying he “blasted” her office. The next day, Senator Wyden was followed by nine of thirteen Senate Finance…
As Congress considers renewal of the program, the marketing has switched to “facilitating supply chain shifts out of China”. This is narrative creation completely untethered to reality.
Background De minimis is a regulatory loophole. It was morphed from a tiny customs administrative exception into a backdoor superhighway through our ports. The regulatory changes to de minimis enabled overseas vendors around the world to ship directly to American citizens, currently to the tune of two million per day. And they do this without…
On June 1, 2023, the United States and Taiwan signed “the first agreement under the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade.” “Initiative”? “21st Century Trade”? Sleepy terms that convey a classic “nothing-burger”. But that’s never been the case with trade agreements. This agreement, ostensibly for Taiwan, sets out expectations for how the U.S. and Taiwan…
On Friday, March 31, the U.S. Treasury launched their latest torpedo targeting the Inflation Reduction Act’s domestic manufacturing policies. This time, it’s over what countries have a “free trade agreement” with the United States. This is actually universally understood fact: there are twenty countries. But to grow the list beyond the twenty, so as to…
Last August, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping bill that has already led to tens of billions in private investment into U.S. manufacturing. But the U.S. Treasury department’s haphazard, inchoate implementation of the electric vehicle purchasing tax credits has led to consumer chaos and uncertainty in the new car market. Worse yet,…
U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) has released a discussion draft of a sweeping, ambitious bill titled the “Americas Act”. The bill states its aim to “establish a regional trade, investment, and people-to-people partnership of countries in the Western Hemisphere”. But unlike every other U.S. trade agreement in the last century, the Americas Act actually undertakes…
By Charles Benoit, CPA Trade Counsel In December, the U.S.-China Commission, a group created by Congress to advise on managing the bilateral relationship, formally recommended that China lose its Most-Favored Nation (MFN) tariff status. Referencing the decision to grant China permanent MFN status in 2001, Speaker McCarthy said in remarks on the House floor yesterday…
Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio needs to be on the Senate Finance Committee for the good of the country. Even if Senator McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, isn’t convinced about the good of the country part, he should see that not assigning Vance to Finance will surely doom Republicans to minority status in…