PNTR Bill Nearly Ready in House

House leaders had thought there could be a vote to remove Russia's permanent normal trade relations status on March 16, but both the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee and the majority leader, who schedules bills for a vote, said that text that is accepted by both parties is nearly done. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, told International Trade Today during a press call that the text just needs to be finished so that there can be "a chance to brief our members in the House before it goes to a vote."

Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., in a hallway interview at the Capitol, said he hopes there will be a vote "in the next day or so" on ending permanent normal trade relations with Russia, and that he thinks a March 17 vote is likely. The House also has not sent the bill banning Russian oil over to the Senate yet, and Neal said that's because he intends to pair it with the end of PNTR.

Brady noted that the bill will offer the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative flexibility to hike tariffs beyond those in Column 2 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. When asked about whether the U.S. might hike tariffs on Russian fertilizer, since the non-most-favored-nation tariff for it is also zero, Brady said, "One of the reasons we agreed not to take the Canadian approach of just levying an across-the-board 35% tariff on the non-energy products the Russians are selling into the United States was to give USTR the flexibility to adjust those tariff levels so that they inflict the greatest amount of pain on Russia and the least amount of pain in America."

He said that aside from energy products, for which import is now banned, the top exports from Russia were aluminum, seafood, wood and wooden products, and chemicals, including fertilizer. Seafood is also now banned, under an executive order issued last week. He said the administration could hike the tariff on fertilizer or on aluminum, but it has to consider the price and supply effects for U.S. consumers to do so. "I support that flexibility," he said.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told ITT at the Capitol, "We need to look at that," when asked about Russian exports that still have zero tariffs under Column 2. "There are some items we need to look at increasing tariffs on."

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who held a March 16 press call, said that the bill to end PNTR "did not go forward last week because the president, in my opinion rightfully so, asked for time to talk to our allies." He added, "If we could put the bill on the floor this week, we will do so. We will do it soon."

Although Hoyer is not directly involved in the conversations about the bill, he said he thinks the Republicans and Democrats had not finished fine-tuning the language that they had previously agreed to. "We haven’t reached full consensus ... we want the bill to be a bipartisan bill," he said. "I would have liked to do it today. I would like to do it tomorrow or Friday, if it can be done." The House is not in session next week.

Brady said one of the changes from the previous four-corners agreement is in the language on conditions under which the president can restore PNTR. "The conditions we’ve landed on are very strong," he said, and give a chance for consultation with Ukraine's government and give Congress the opportunity to disapprove of a restoration.

Portman said the Senate Finance Committee's top Republican told him that the committee is moving forward with the House and the administration on a PNTR bill all can support.

In addition to the move to make importing Russian goods more expensive, and banning some categories of imports, some in Congress are trying to use moral suasion to convince American companies to stop sourcing in Russia. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said that a situation in which companies stop buying Russian products would put additional pressure on the Russian government. "I think it's a reasonable thing to do, as [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy said, peace is more important than income."

Portman, who organized the press conference on Ukraine at which Lankford spoke, said the administration has advanced to more assertive moves against Russia after pressure from Congress. "We need to continue to push what we think is the best policy to try to save Ukraine," including economic measures and shipments of weapons to intercept missiles headed for Ukraine's cities.