Grassley Decries Export Controls on Medical Goods, Says Pandemic Likely Delays UK Trade Talks

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the export restrictions on masks, respirators, medicines and other goods needed for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic is “a bad cycle,” and he urged the president and world leaders “to work together on a coordinated response on the epidemic.” Grassley, who was speaking with reporters on a conference call March 16, said restrictions reduce global supply and lead to higher prices. “I was encouraged to see the G7 leaders' statement today,” he said, which mentioned support for global trade.

Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow for trade Jennifer Hillman, who spoke earlier in the day about trade in the time of coronavirus, said the idea that government buyers should be barred from buying goods coming from China and the European Union under export restrictions is not the way to go. She said international coordination is needed so supplies go where they are needed most. She noted that the head of Alibaba, the Chinese Amazon equivalent, just donated a huge shipment to the U.S. of coronavirus goods. “The Chinese are very much stepping up to export every bit they possibly can,” she said.

Grassley also answered a question about trade talks between the United Kingdom and U.S., and said “they’re surely going to be slowed down, but I don't know if they’re going to be officially postponed or not.”

The top official for trade at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Myron Brilliant, who also was on the webinar that Hillman spoke on, said he doesn't see how the U.S. and the U.K. could arrive at a trade deal before the European Union and the U.K. finish their talks.

Hillman said the status of goods between the U.K.and the EU is more important to American business than a U.S.-U.K. free trade treaty. “Are we going to get an agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union that continues to allow goods to trade without any tariffs?” She noted that Ford has 13,000 employees making cars in the U.K., and many of those cars are made with Ford parts coming from North America. Eighty percent of those cars are sold in continental Europe, rather than in the U.K.

“Once Brexit happens if there is no agreement,” she said, each of those cars would be subject to a 10% tariff and subject to a reinspection of the car, which could cost more than $2,000 per vehicle. That would be devastating to Ford's competitiveness in the EU, she said.