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President Biden should consider striking “sectoral” deals on key issues as his administration works to develop a comprehensive trade agenda, analysts said this week.
“The U.S. and Japan now need to think bigger, broader, harder and in greater unison about how to maximize our collective impact on urgent regional and global challenges.”
“Japan … may be less inclined to provide access to U.S. rice, sugar, and the remaining dairy products in subsequent negotiations.”
The U.S.-Japan trade agreement fully complies with World Trade Organization rules, Tokyo said last week after facing questions from several countries in Geneva.
Rep. Adrian Smith writes that Japan’s new prime minister “has emphasized strengthening existing ties with the United States. What better way to do that than to get Phase Two off the ground.”
The congresswoman also lamented that “In this current campaign season, the Republicans love to claim that a Democrat is somehow too close to China or a socialist.”
Two senior House Ways & Means trade subcommittee Democrats said last week they were optimistic a Biden administration could prioritize a reset of U.S. trade relations.
Jeffrey Gerrish, who until last month was the deputy U.S. Trade Representative for Asia, Europe, the Middle East and industrial competitiveness, said the U.S. and China to date have been able to resolve a slew of issues at the technical level without resorting to their phase-one deal’s enforcement mechanism.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Toshimitsu Motegi on Wednesday addressed what they see as an “urgent” need to reform the World Trade Organization, including its dispute settlement system, according to the Japanese Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Mobile crane imports primarily come from U.S. allies that do not pose national security threats, providing domestic consumers access to top-of-the-line infrastructure equipment, U.S. crane companies and foreign governments have told the Trump administration.
“Reduces costs and streamlines the process for anyone involved in the organic livestock supply chain by requiring only one organic certification.”
Japan remains one of the few major non-U.S. economies that has not signed up to the European Union-led stopgap appeals arrangement at the World Trade Organization, arguing on Wednesday that any interim plan must be established with an eye toward a long-term solution.
Citing market-access disadvantages, 50 House lawmakers from both sides of the aisle this week called on the administration to “swiftly” pursue a comprehensive phase-two deal with the Japan.
The U.S. on Monday backed Japan’s invocation of the World Trade Organization national security exception in a dispute with South Korea over semiconductor materials. The U.S. has cited the same provision in challenges to its steel and aluminum tariffs.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Toshimitsu Motegi this week affirmed a joint hope to reform the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement system and forge new e-commerce rules, according to USTR.
Japan is lobbying additional Asian countries to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership in a bid to reduce supply-chain dependency on China, according to a report out of Japan.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, like all other federal agencies, is adapting to life during a global pandemic that has radically overhauled how many work. But how, exactly, the new reality is affecting its operations is not known -- and USTR isn’t saying.
Dan DiMicco, a member of USTR’s chief advisory panel and a longtime adviser to President Trump, said the administration’s trade team is working on business as usual despite complications caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
President Trump this week decided not to impose Section 232 duties on titanium sponge imports despite the Commerce Department’s determination that they threaten national security.