As part of the questions for the record for U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer after he testified before the Senate Finance Committee on April 8, there was an interesting exchange between Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Greer related to any trade deals resulting from the IEEPA "reciprocal" tariffs. Wyden asked the following:
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told the press that at least 130 countries are negotiating trade deals with the United States.
a. Please provide me with a list of countries with which the Administration is negotiating, as well as the Administration’s specific negotiating objectives for each.
i. Is USTR leading negotiations with each of these negotiations? If not, please provide the lead official for each negotiation and their specific negotiating authority.
ii. What is the timeline for each negotiation?
iii. Will you commit to providing a public consultation process for each negotiation?
b. Given limited resources, as well as limited time until the end of the Administration’s partial tariff pause, how is the Administration prioritizing countries for negotiations?
c. Will you commit to memorializing any deal reached with formal documentation?
d. Will you commit to submitting any deal reached to Congress for approval?
These are some good questions, many of which I had been wondering about myself. In particular, I'm curious about (1) the formal documents that will come out of these deals and (2) the role of Congress in approving them. I know they won't be full-fledged FTAs, but will they look something like a smaller-scale FTA? And will Congress try to assert a role here, sort of like it did with the Taiwan trade deal during the Biden administration?
Here was Greer's answer:
As I discussed at my nomination hearing, I will continue working closely with Congress on formulating U.S. trade policy. USTR has apprised Congress of number of ongoing negotiations with trading partners that USTR is leading, and USTR has begun the process of sharing the list of countries and negotiating objectives for these negotiations with Committee staff. USTR will continue to consult with Congress on the proposed negotiating objectives for each negotiation.
USTR is leading negotiations with our trading partners, and USTR seeks to negotiate and conclude agreements in each of these negotiations where such agreements might help resolve the national emergency declared by the President.
In advance of the April 2 IEEPA action, USTR asked the public for comment on nonreciprocal or problematic trade practices by our trading partners, and this informed the IEEPA action and informs our negotiating. Given the accelerated timeline of these negotiations, USTR cannot commit to providing another public consultation process for these negotiations. However, USTR has provided and will provide Congress with an opportunity to comment on proposed negotiating texts prior to USTR sharing them with a foreign trading partner consistent with our statutory obligations and will keep Congress apprised of developments with specific trading partners.
We are prioritizing negotiations with trading partners willing to take measures that will lower our bilateral goods trade deficits, directly addressing the national emergency that the President declared on April 2. I commit to memorializing these agreements formally.
Given that these agreements, if accepted, will rebalance trade with the particular foreign trading partner, the vast majority of commitments they contain will be made by the foreign trading partner, not the United States. To the extent that the United States does make a commitment in these agreements, I do not foresee that any U.S. law would need to be changed. As such, USTR will negotiate and conclude these agreements as executive agreements. USTR will share the text of country-specific reciprocal trade agreements with Congress prior to concluding and signing them.
One important point here is his comment that "USTR will negotiate and conclude these agreements as executive agreements." Will Congress be satisfied with that? Are executive agreements sufficient for what the members of Congress are looking for here? I think that what many members of Congress -- especially the agriculture state folks -- want is market access. If that access does not feel durable because a future administration can undo the whole exercise, will they be concerned? Obviously a future administration will be reluctant to wipe away any market access for U.S. producers that has been achieved, but at the same time I can see those future officials wanting to start the trade negotiating process with a clean slate and on a firmer statutory footing. It's worth noting here that the IEEPA tariffs serving as the foundation for the negotiations are being challenged in court, leading to some uncertainty as to the value of concessions related to these tariffs as part of a negotiated trade deal.
Greer also says "I commit to memorializing these agreements formally." That sounds good, but I do wonder what that will mean in practice. In the U.S.-UK context, so far what we have is the "General Terms" document. Will there be more than that at some point? How much documentation are we going to be getting and what will be in those documents?
