House Trade Subcommittee Chairman Casts Doubt on Timely Renewal of GSP, MTB

House Ways and Means Committee Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., cast doubt on Congress voting to renew the Generalized System of Preferences trade benefits program before it expires, and on passing a new Miscellaneous Tariff Bill to cover imports in 2021 and 2022. He told an online audience at the Washington International Trade Association Sept. 23 that it's too soon to say whether a vote would be possible.

Blumenauer said that while both GSP and MTB should be items that Congress can work together on across party lines, “just having people really spun up” makes it difficult. “A lot of it depends on how raw feelings are” after the election, he said, and suggested that if it takes two weeks to figure out who won, that will make it harder to get the bills through the process. Many states will allow absentee ballots to be counted that arrive after Election Day, so it's not unlikely that the outcome would not be known in the first week.

If Joe Biden wins the presidency, Blumenauer said, there should be a complete reappraisal of the Section 301 tariffs on China. “The notion that somehow tariffs are going to be paid by the Chinese and not American business and consumers is false, it’s a flat-out lie,” he said. He said throwing around subsidy money to farmers to try to mitigate the impact of trade wars is not what American agriculture wants and that it's “a horrific mistake” to think you can rely on bluster and what he calls “drive-by tariffs” with China.

If the administration hadn't been so belligerent with allies, “our friends and allies would join with us and be a force multiplier” in confronting the distortions of state-owned enterprises and forced technology transfers, he said. He said the new administration cannot act precipitously, but must “find a way to unwind the elements [of Trump's tariffs] that are the most destructive.” He said a Biden administration will need to fix the damage Trump has made to ally relationships.

Blumenauer said that questions around what U.S. technology can be sent to China and what Chinese technology should be used in America are complex. He questioned why banning TikTok and WeChat has become such a priority, and said technology theft and forced technology transfers are more important. “The problem with the Trump China policies in particular is they seem arbitrary, punitive and too often incoherent,” he said. “They confuse our allies and confound our adversaries.”

The moderator asked Blumenauer what he thinks of a bill from Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., that would give Congress a better opportunity to stop Section 232 tariffs and a bill from Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., that would clarify that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act cannot be used to impose tariffs. He said that both members are valuable experts on trade, and said that their ideas are “good alternatives” to the current level of trade delegation.

Trade Promotion Authority, the bill that gives the administration marching orders on negotiating trade agreements, may not be renewed on time if the president doesn't engage Congress, he said. “If we see the same high-handed approach” that has been common during the first Trump term, he said, he would lead efforts to radically rethink how Congress delegates trade powers to the executive branch. Even if a Biden administration takes a cooperative approach, Blumenauer said, “I expect we will have many members who will still want to revisit the parameters of delegated trade.”