For more information on pursuing trade policy interests through the legislative process, please contact Nicole Bivens Collinson at (202) 730-4956 or via email.
Section 301. Dozens of House Republicans urged U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in a June 10 letter to follow through “as soon as possible” on Greer’s announcement earlier this year that USTR would initiate a Section 301 investigation on pharmaceutical pricing practices.
Trade Remedies. The two leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party asked Secretary Lutnick in a June 10 letter to affirm the Department of Commerce’s practice in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings of applying adverse facts available when foreign respondents refused to cooperate with AD/CVD investigations. “Recent proceedings suggest the Department may be departing from that practice in adopting or contemplating rates significantly below petition levels even in cases of total respondent non-cooperation,” the letter said. “Artificially depressing dumping margins by not applying AFA rates may lead to insufficient duty rates that fail to remedy the injury suffered by U.S. industries and workers by dumped products.”
China. The China Subsidy Response and Export Competitiveness Act (S. 4702, introduced June 8 by Sens. Gallego, D-Ariz., and Ricketts, R-Neb.) would strengthen the Export-Import Bank’s China and Transformational Exports Program, which helps U.S. exporters facing competition from China and ensures that the U.S. continues to lead in transformational export areas. This bill would (1) give the Ex-Im Bank more flexibility to address concerns that China can subsidize its competing goods and services not only through export credits but also through domestic credits and other financial assistance, (2) add medical manufacturing as a new transformational export area, and (3) add printed circuit boards to the semiconductor transformational export areas to counter U.S. dependence on overseas providers, particularly China.
Textiles. A bipartisan group of House members asked Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in a June 9 letter to “develop and institute a comprehensive textile enforcement program” to counter “customs fraud and abuse by foreign competitors and organized crime.” They urged that this program include the following elements.
- maximum fines and penalties (civil and criminal) for repeat violators
- blacklisting importers for repeat violations and revoking trade privileges, including denial of preferential access to the U.S. market
- publicly listing importers that intentionally and continually violate trade laws
- increased customs enforcement for free trade agreement-qualifying duty-free goods
- increased onsite enforcement at offshore FTA production sites to verify rules of origin
- timely publication of textile enforcement statistics
- lab testing (including isotopic) of imports claiming FTA qualifying benefits to determine the origin of component parts contained in the goods
- frequent audits of U.S. content in goods subject to penalty tariffs
- incentivizing good actors with excellent compliance records through programs like the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism
Imports. S. 4710 (introduced June 9 by Sen. Slotkin, D-Mich.) would prohibit the entry into the U.S. of connected vehicles associated with foreign adversaries.
Exports. The Unlocking Next-Generation Licensing and Opportunities for Collaborative Know-how for AUKUS Act (S. 4709, introduced June 8 by Sens. Ricketts, R-Neb., and Kaine, D-Va.) would expand the Australia-United Kingdom-U.S. partnership by (1) enabling eligible Missile Technology Control Regime-related items that are not registered on the excluded technology list or the government-to-government list to benefit from the AUKUS license-free environment, (2) establishing a secure, predictable pathway for the transfer of goods and technology controlled by the MTCR for AUKUS partners within the trusted community of AUKUS authorized users, and (3) maintaining full compliance with non-proliferation commitments under the MTCR.
Copyright © 2026 Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A.; WorldTrade Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved.