Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You'll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day's biggest stories. USICA versus COMPETES: The Senate already has directed Tai to create a new tariff exclusion process as part of its China competition bill, the U.S. Innovation and Competition, S. 1260 (117), that the chamber passed last spring. The America COMPETES Act, H.R. 4521, passed by the House on Friday does not contain a similar provision. However, a bipartisan group of 141 House members wrote Tai in January to urge her to establish a more comprehensive tariff exclusion process. In three other differences between the two bills, the House package renews and expands the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, revokes the "di minimis" duty-waiver provision for low-value shipments from China, and creates a new outbound investment screening mechanism. The Senate USICA bill contains none of those provisions. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Friday urged lawmakers not to let differences between the trade provisions of the two bills slow down work on a final China competition bill that both chambers could support. "I think it's fair to say that the trade title portion of both of these bills is the most contentious [and] is the area where there's the least bipartisan agreement," Raimondo told reporters. Both bills renew two tariff waiver programs – the Generalized System of Preferences and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill — although there are also differences there that need to be worked out in conference. Both bills contain provisions written by Portman and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to give the government new trade remedy tools to crack down on repeat offenders. BIDEN DOUBLES SOLAR CELL TRQ: President Joe Biden announced Friday that he was doubling the Trump administration's tariff-rate quota for crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells to 5 gigawatts annually, allowing big foreign suppliers such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and South Korea to ship more of those products to the United States without paying duties. However, all solar panels — which are assembled from individual cells — will continue to face import tariffs near current levels for the next four years. The U.S. has collected more than $2.8 billionworth of solar tariffs under Trump's order over the past four years. Trump imposed the so-called safeguard action in 2018 using Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act, which allows the president to temporarily increase duties to give a domestic industry time to adjust to market-disrupting foreign competition. The four-year order expired on Sunday, requiring Biden to decide whether to renew it in response to a new industry petition. Trump's original order allowed 2.5 gigawatts worth of cells to come in duty free. He set an above-duty tariff of 30 percent, which was phased down to 15 percent over four years. Biden's action doubles the duty-free access for cells and reduces the above duty rate to 14.75 percent immediately. It also reduces that rate, in small 0.25 percent increments, to 14 percent over the following three years. The new 14.75 percent tariff on modules will also be reduced gradually to 14 percent in the same timeframe. U.S. trade data shows Malaysia and Vietnam each supplied about 32 percent of U.S. solar imports in the first 11 months of 2021, followed by Thailand with 17 percent and South Korea with slightly more than 10 percent. China, which faces stiff duties under a different U.S. trade remedy action, supplied less than 1 percent. Talks with Canada, Mexico: Biden's new order, like Trump's before it, also applies to USMCA partners Canada and Mexico. However, it directs Tai to see if an agreement can be reached with those countries without undermining the effectiveness of the safeguard action. BOTTLED WATER INDUSTRY TARGETS PET RESIN DUTIES: The International Bottled Water Association is fighting for removal of anti-dumping duties that the Commerce Department imposed on imports of PET resins from Canada, India, Oman and China in 2016. The resin makes a lightweight, durable plastic that is used in packaging for thousands of beverages, foods, pharmaceutical and other consumer products. Bottled water companies say the duties add to the difficulties they face in getting supplies from domestic plastic bottle producers who want to keep the duties in place. "Total demand [for PET resin] is 147 percent of the total supply," IBWA President and CEO Joe Doss told reporters last week. "And many industries, including bottled water companies, are faced with supply chain issues." The U.S. International Trade Commission is expected to vote on the issue in March as part of a "sunset review" that is required every five years for all anti-dumping orders. Domestic PET resin manufacturers who want renewal of the duties include DAK Americas, Indorama Ventures USA, Nan Ya Plastics Corp. and America APG Polytech. They are U.S. subsidiaries of companies based in Mexico, Thailand and Taiwan. FINAL CHINA PURCHASE FIGURES OUT TUESDAY: There's not much doubt that China failed to meet its target of buying an additional $200 billion worth of U.S. goods and services in 2020 and 2021, compared to 2017. Still, Morning Trade is looking forward to the Commerce Department's monthly trade report tomorrow, which will give full figures for 2021. Drum roll, please: For most of the past two years, the Commerce Department has released trade data for selected products covered by the "Phase 1" U.S.-China deal about two weeks before the monthly trade report. However, department officials decided to end that "temporary" separate report ahead of the final figures being released Tuesday. Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, is particularly keen to see the data so he can put the finishing touches on his China trade "tracker," which has been an invaluable resource for keeping tabs on that country's purchases. "No one is going to be happier than I, when the purchase commitments are finally done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!," Bown said in an email. "I am waiting for the data to drop and then will publish a really deep dive as soon as it does." TRUMP'S STEEL TARIFFS BACK IN COURT WEDNESDAY: Steel importers will be in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Wednesday to argue that former President Donald Trump acted illegally in 2018 when he imposed tariffs on steel to protect U.S. national security. The case brought by Universal Steel Products, a steel importer based in New Jersey, and four other plaintiffs contends that Trump failed to act within the required time frame to impose the tariffs and also erred by failing to specify the impending threat to national security or how long the duties should remain in place. The Court of International Trade ruled in favor of the Trump administration when it heard the case last year. Lewis Leibowitz is the attorney for the importers.
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