USTR

The United Kingdom is pressing the U.S. to remove its retaliatory tariffs on British products as a show of good faith in the upcoming trade negotiations, UK Secretary of International Trade Liz Truss said on Monday.

Congress should exercise its “power of the purse” to force the Commerce Department to release its Section 232 report on auto imports and compel testimony from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative if necessary, Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) said this week.

Senate Finance Committee members Tim Scott (SC) and James Lankford (OK) believe the U.S. should prioritize efforts to strike a bilateral deal with New Zealand next year, a subject Scott said he recently raised with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

“There are a lot of barriers to trade there and there are a lot of other problems that we have to address.”

The assessments of the deal's likely impact on employment, labor and the environment have not yet been made public.

Mexico's under secretary for North America laments the idea of labor attachés “whose function is not clear but Mexico will NEVER accept if ... disguised inspectors, for a simple reason: Mexican law prohibits it.”

China agreed to increase its purchases of U.S. goods and services by $200 billion as part of a phase-one deal, including upping its buys of U.S. agricultural products to $40-50 billion per year, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told reporters on Friday.

The Senate Finance Committee will not hold a mock markup of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement implementing bill, trade subcommittee Chairman John Cornyn (R-TX) said on Thursday, lamenting what he called a break from decades of precedent.

BRT: “We are very disappointed that the deal announced yesterday removes or weakens important intellectual property protections.”