Section 201 Archives - WITA

Report on Seasonal and Perishable Products in U.S. Commerce

Ann Marie Caton — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 18:34:54 +0000

Executive Summary

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the United States Department of Commerce (Commerce) have jointly prepared this report outlining the Trump Administration’s plan to address threats that increased imports pose to American producers of seasonal and perishable fruits and vegetables.

Perishable fruit and vegetable producers face unique challenges because of the short window of time during which their produce retains the freshness that retailers and consumers demand. Given this narrow window of marketability, American fruit and vegetable producers’ profitability can be devastated when imports of a product surge immediately before or during the domestic growers’ marketing window for that product. This challenge is compounded when imported products are sold to the consumer at lower prices than the domestically grown produce, and particularly so if the import prices are significantly and artificially lower due to unfair trade practices.

Furthermore, while multiple regions of the United States may be suitable for growing a particular commodity, the disparate climates and temperature patterns among those regions create distinct marketing windows for each region that vary from one another. As such, different regions within the United States that grow the same seasonal commodity can be affected and potentially injured by import competition to drastically differing degrees. The various regions also may differ with regard to the sub-markets in which they primarily market their products. For example, blueberry farmers in Florida and Georgia may have to compete primarily against imports from a particular country in that region’s marketing window, Michigan blueberry farmers against a different country in their window, while blueberry farmers in the northwest in Washington and Oregon may face altogether different competitive dynamics.

Given the unparalleled variety of seasonal specialty crops grown in the United States, the differing marketing windows among regions growing those crops, and the variability of import competition for each crop, there are contrasting opinions on this matter that vary by crop and largely by region of the country. Generally, it is predominantly fruit and vegetable producers in southeastern U.S. states who contend that they are adversely affected by import competition from Mexico, whereas producers and stakeholders in California and western states generally consider foreign production to be countercyclical and beneficially complementary to domestic production in their region.

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Wilbur L. Ross is the Jr. Secretary at the United States Department of Commerce.

Sonny Perdue is the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Robert E. Lighthizer is the Ambassador to the Office of the United States Trade Representative

To read the full report, please click here

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A 10-Point User Guide to the Trump Tariff Wars

Mariapia Carbajal — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 18:55:05 +0000

Summary

President Trump has announced plans to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum from a wide variety of countries, on $50 billion worth of Chinese exports (including products ranging from aircraft to chicken incubators), and has floated the idea of placing tariffs on automobile imports as well. The president justifies all of this on the grounds that other nations are not acting fairly, because if they were then the United States wouldn’t be running significant trade deficits. President Trump recently tweeted that: “The United States is insisting that all countries that have placed artificial Trade Barriers and Tariffs on goods going into their country, remove those Barriers & Tariffs or be met with more than Reciprocity by the U.S.A. Trade must be fair and no longer a one way street!” Trump’s approach has drawn widespread criticism, sparking a debate in which partisans for and against the president’s policies have made all sorts of claims and counter-claims. This briefing untangles the prevailing arguments and sets the record straight on 10 important points of fact.

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The Changing Nature of Import Relief

Mark Kennedy — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 20:47:50 +0000

I normally don’t comment on specific trade cases that are pending, largely because they are advocacy driven, and saying anything inevitably produces cranky comments from people on the other side explaining in excruciating detail why I don’t know what I’m talking about. Way too much aggravation. However, the two Section 201 cases that the president will shortly decide—solar panels and washing machines—are good illustrations of how much the trade landscape has changed in recent years and how unexpectedly complicated these decisions have become.

For those who have forgotten (or never knew in the first place), Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 authorizes “safeguard” measures, which are permitted under limited circumstances by the World Trade Organization (WTO). To get relief, one need not prove dumping or subsidization or any other unfair practice. You simply need to establish that a fairly rapid increase in imports is causing serious injury (a higher threshold than the “material” injury in antidumping/countervailing duties cases). The safeguard concept permits temporary import relief in such cases, usually defined as no more than four years, with the expectation that any relief granted will decline in each succeeding year. To win, the International Trade Commission (ITC) must decide that serious injury has occurred by reason of the imports and recommend a remedy, but final action is up to the president, who has broad discretion.

To read full report click here.

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