U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai faced lawmaker questions Wednesday on trade policy plans by the Biden administration as she testified on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 budget plan for USTR.
She touted the four-month pause in tariffs between the U.S., UK and European Union (EU) as a significant move and stressed to lawmakers she was committed to ending the dispute that goes back more than 10 years.
As for the U.S.-China Phase One agreement, Tai indicated that she was looking forward to kicking off a top-to-bottom review of the agreement and China's compliance. "The picture is more nuanced than you might think, by just looking at the trade data," Tai told lawmakers. A top-level review meeting between the U.S. and China has not yet been scheduled, but Tai said such a session would be scheduled "soon."
Tai also pledged to use the enforcement mechanisms in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), noting she has raised compliance issues with her Mexican counterpart and the U.S. has already launched dispute settlement mechanisms on dairy with Canada. On matters regarding Mexican bans on imports of glyphosate and GMO corn and other ag-trade barriers, Tai said USTR is "looking at it in terms of what our options are to resolve these issues soon."
There was not perhaps a lot more information about the Biden trade plans than was known ahead of the meeting and it may be somewhat surprising that it appears USTR has either just started or will start a broad review of the Phase One agreement with China. This appears to underline that trade policy has not been a high focus for the Biden administration.