U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai spent much of her appearance this week before the Senate Finance Committee defending and explaining the administration's newly adopted position of backing a waiver of intellectual property (IP) rules at the WTO relative to COVID vaccines.
Republican lawmakers took the greatest exception to the shift, warning of what they viewed as an action to turn over U.S. IP to foreign countries, including Russia and China. While Tai did not specifically address the concerns relative to China and Russia, she continued to frame their administration's stance as one of wanting to expand COVID vaccines and save lives. Ag trade issues did not get a lot of focus in the session and even China was not a major attention point for lawmaker questions.
More attention was put on issues with Mexico and Canada, ones that Tai pledged would be raised next week at a meeting of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) Free Trade Commission. Those include Mexico's announced ban on glyphosate, GMO corn and softwood lumber and dairy issues with Canada.
On China, Tai reiterated that the U.S. is continuing to approach the situation by engaging allies and she also referenced the top-to-bottom review of U.S. trade policies with China.
Tai still has not shed a great deal of light on the Biden administration's trade focus, including on a U.S.-UK trade deal. She did acknowledge there are still "very critical issue areas" that are open in those negotiations, and there is "quite a road to go there." That suggests there is not yet a focus on pushing those negotiations forward as she related she is still wanting to think through how to construct such a trade accord.