USTR Talks Policy Agenda for 2024 in Ways and Means Hearing

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai testified April 16 before the House Ways and Means Committee regarding the Biden administration’s trade policy agenda for 2024. She expressed support for upcoming legislation to renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and to close the de minimis imports loophole (see 2404160029), and she detailed some of the administration’s values and aims for the upcoming year. “Our approach is one that addresses and advances the interests of all parts of our economy and does not pit Americans against Americans,” she said.

Tai touched on agricultural biotechnology concerns with Mexico. She said that, under the USMCA, the U.S. has established a dispute settlement panel and is “working to resolve those concerns.” It is also pursuing settlement consultations regarding energy disputes between the two countries.

She highlighted “wins” the administration has achieved, including agreements with the EU to modify tariff rate quotas for rice, wheat and corn; increase the amount of beef the U.S. can export to Japan; expand U.S. potato exports to Mexico; and reduce restrictions on exports of poultry products to South Africa and Colombia. She said that the nation is “making progress on the U.S.-Kenya Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership,” too.

In his opening remarks, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., said that he is concerned about the administration’s failure to pursue new trade deals and its lax enforcement of current ones, especially the USMCA. The country, he said, is “rapidly losing ground to China” as it fails to enforce the phase one agreement, has opened no new WTO cases and not initiated any more Section 301 investigations.

He said that USTR’s efforts to secure mineral deals in Japan, the EU, the U.K. and Indonesia “have incensed both Republicans and Democrats on this committee, as well as in the other chamber” and that they would be advancing legislation the next day “to correct that.” He said that USTR is “now nearly six years into a four-year review of President Trump’s tariffs.”

“Unfortunately, it is clear that the Biden administration's focus has been misplaced,” he said. “Rather than work to deliver for American workers, farmers and small businesses, the administration appeases progressive activists to make trade “woke” and surrenders U.S. leadership on priorities like digital trade.

Tai clarified that the review has only lasted two years. The name, she said, refers to the fact that the review was intended to begin four years after the tariffs were implemented.