5 Republican Senators Support Trade Elements of House Bill, Oppose 301 Exclusion Provisions

Five Republican senators, only one of whom voted for the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), are asking that Senate conferees drop the directive to reopen a Section 301 exclusion process, and add a number of trade provisions only found in the House China package. Some House proposals that Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Ala., Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Florida's two senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, both Republicans, want to include:

• Changes to antidumping and countervailing duty laws, known as Level the Playing Field Act 2.0. "The bill gives the U.S. International Trade Commission authorities to combat transshipment and duty evasion in circumstances where it has already determined that unfair foreign trade is injuring U.S. firms. It also creates faster timelines to ensure that American workers can gain relief before their jobs are lost. These provisions will help ensure that American workers are not powerless against state-sponsored Chinese firms abusing international norms to unfairly compete," they wrote in a July 5 letter.
• Carving China out of de minimis benefits. They cited Wall Street Journal reporting that said more than a tenth of Chinese imports by value arrive as de minimis shipments.
• Outbound investment screening. "While we encourage the conference committee to improve the text of Title IV, we strongly support additional tools to protect national security vulnerabilities related to the offshoring of critical capacities and American supply chains," they wrote.
• Barring finished goods from future Miscellaneous Tariff Bill rounds. "As the use of MTBs has grown, importers have discovered that despite the intent of the statute, they can use it to obtain tariff reductions for wholly-finished goods, placing American workers at a disadvantage," they wrote

"We believe that these changes, along with additional provisions that appropriately incentivize domestic investment in specific areas, can make crucial contributions to our competitiveness with China," the men said. Sullivan is the only one of the signatories who voted for USICA last year. The letter doesn't mention Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's vow that Republicans will not help with USICA because Democrats are working to move a bill with only Democratic votes under the reconciliation process, that allows an end-run around the filibuster (see 2207010039).