USTR Ambassador Tai Promotes Biden Trade Policy on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON, DC – Earlier this week, United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai endured hours-long questioning on back-to-back days from the House Committee on Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committee.  The hearings are an annual exercise for the Committees to probe administration trade policies.  USTR released its 2024 Trade Policy Agenda in March, which seemingly omits a proactive approach for U.S. agriculture’s access to global markets.
 
House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) kicked off his hearing with a dissatisfied tone over the Biden Administration’s agricultural trade policy approach by saying, “U.S. agriculture producers benefit when the administration aggressively pursues a trade agenda that prioritizes their interests, and when USTR goes to bat for them around the world … The Administration has unfortunately chosen a go-it-alone trade policy that consists of endless dialogues and unenforceable trade frameworks that fail to open new markets to American products…”

Smith expressed the notion that USTR be far more aggressive in protecting the interests of American farmers.  Tai defended the President’s agenda highlighting the paradigm shift the administration has taken to empower workers through trade, incentivizing an environment that no longer pits U.S. industries or U.S. workers against each other as well as against workers in other countries.
 
Yesterday, Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) led a less critical discussion of the President’s trade priorities in his opening remarks but did not shy away from criticizing the Administration’s policies in recent months.  Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) pressed Ambassador Tai on India’s rice subsidies.  “I am also hearing from my rice people – they are saying that if it wasn’t for India’s subsidies for rice, they would have roughly $850 million more in exports.”  Ambassador Tai acknowledged familiarity of the situation with India and agreed to continue the dialogue to hold India accountable.

Concurrent with the Senate’s hearing, the House Ways and Means Committee held a markup of Trade Subcommittee Chair Adrian Smith’s (R-NE) proposed Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) Reform Act bill.  The reauthorization of the GSP, which provides duty-free access for imports from developing countries, was a topic of mutual interest for Republicans and Democrats throughout the two hearings.
 
“We commend House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) and the Trade Subcommittee Chair Adrian Smith (R-NE), for helping to address the long overdue reforms to GSP that will help ensure the United States does not give preferential market access to bad actors who simultaneously work to disadvantage our agricultural producers,” said USA Rice President & CEO Peter Bachmann.  “Rice remains one of the most government-manipulated commodities in the world.  For too long, the United States has essentially waived any barriers to entry into our market while U.S. rice exports face double-, and in some cases triple-, digit tariffs in parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe.  These reforms to GSP are progress towards leveling the playing field to give U.S. farmers a more equitable global market in which to compete."
 
The Committee voted largely along party lines to approve the GSP Reform Act along with several other trade-related bills which can now be brought to the full House of Representatives for consideration.