Editor’s note: Good. Leave section 232 alone. We don’t need Congress taking away tools that further national and economic security in trade.
Efforts in Congress to reform Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 have stalled because Senate Finance Committee members could not agree on a way forward and too many Republicans were loath to back an action they worried could be viewed as anti-Trump, committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said on Thursday, suggesting the push to rein in presidential authority may be over.
[May 28, 2020 | InsideTrade.com]
Citing a recent conversation with President Trump, Grassley also said he was “satisfied” the president was committed to the phase-one trade agreement with China. The Trump administration has in recent weeks ratcheted up its rhetoric against China, including blaming Beijing for the novel coronavirus pandemic, and Trump himself has questioned whether the U.S. should remain in the agreement.
Grassley has been working on a compromise bill addressing Section 232 reform for more than a year, repeatedly pushing back a timeline for its introduction.
“Two things I’ve found out in the year that I’ve been trying to do something on this. Number one, it’s difficult to get bipartisan agreement on what to do and, secondly, there’s some Republicans who don’t want to advance [the bill] because they might be seen as doing it in an anti-Trump fashion,” he told reporters on a conference call….
Read the full article here.
