Amendments to Endless Frontier Act Piling Up

No date has been scheduled yet for a vote on the China package championed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., but lengthy amendments from senators are continuing to flow in, many with trade implications.

The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Mike Crapo of Idaho, submitted two amendments, one requiring congressional approval of a TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization, the other echoes some others' proposals on seafood forced labor (see 2105190047) and adding an inspector general at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, as well as authorizing the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill and Generalized System of Preferences benefits program. His version of GSP renewal adds human rights, digital trade, the environment and women's rights to the eligibility standards. Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a free-standing bill to renew MTB and GSP that adds those issues to eligibility review for GSP. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., also submitted an amendment to require congressional approval of a TRIPS waiver.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D- Mass., submitted an amendment that would require USTR to make a decision about a trade enforcement action within 45 days of a complaint of either forced labor or a violation of a free trade agreement. If it does not pursue enforcement, Warren says, the USTR would have to tell the stakeholder what additional evidence would be needed to initiate an action and publish a Federal Register notice summarizing the additional evidence needed. In the case of forced labor, where CBP is in charge of investigations, the same process would apply, and Warren's amendment instructs the agency to promulgate rules about this process within one year of passage.

Lankford also submitted an amendment that would require the USTR to reinstitute tariff exclusions for products on the China Section 301 lists if the product is not commercially available, or available at a cost-competitive price at commercial scale outside of China; if the duty would increase consumer prices for day-to-day items consumed by low- or middle-income families; or if the product is not directly linked to Chinese market distortions, including Made in China 2025, and if the exclusion is one that CBP can administer. The language of this amendment echoes that of a bill Lankford introduced in 2018 (see 1902280033) that did not get a vote in either chamber.