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Section 301

13 posts

Guest Post: Section 301 on Forced Labor - A Closer Look at the Public Hearings

The Section 301 Investigation on forced labor has reached the stage of the public hearings. Between April 28 and 29, around 60 representatives of countries, business associations and non-governmental organizations offered their input to inform the USTR determination following the initiation notice.

The Section 301 Excess Capacity Investigation Needs Less Madness, More Method

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled President Trump’s emergency tariffs under IEEPA unconstitutional, the administration scrambled to rebuild its tariff wall. While the announcement of Section 122 tariffs immediately following the ruling will provide a temporary patch, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office quickly began to utilize another

The Section 301 Surge Continues: Investigating the Adoption/Enforcement/Administration of Forced Labor Import Bans

This Section 301 investigation intends to pressure all sixty named trade partners (even, inexplicably, including Canada and Mexico) to adopt similar enforcement procedures. This announcement is highly problematic for the four reasons I address below.

The Section 301 Surge Is Upon Us: Investigating Excess Capacity and Production

The first of a large batch of expected Section 301 investigations has arrived, as USTR announced yesterday that it was initiating investigations on acts, policies, and practices of various countries/economies "relating to structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors."

Is Section 301 the Right Remedy for Chinese Shipbuilding Subsidies?

In the Section 301 petition recently filed by a group of unions, the petitioners argued that "Section 301 provides an appropriate mechanism for addressing China’s policies in the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sector." They offer three reasons for this: First, traditional trade remedies are not available to

Non-Discrimination under Section 301: Canadian Digital Services Taxes

This is from a USTR submission to the Canadian government on a proposed Canadian digital services tax: Thank you to the Government of Canada for this opportunity to comment. The United States has serious concerns about the Canadian Government’s plan to enact a Digital Services Tax (DST). The Canadian

The Possibility of Another Section 301 Investigation on Chinese Trade Practices

At the end of the day on Friday, there were a number of news reports about the Biden administration considering a new Section 301 investigation on China, this time focusing on subsidies. Here's Bloomberg: The Biden administration is weighing a new [Section 301] investigation into Chinese subsidies and

The Biden Administration's Approach to Section 301

On Friday, USTR announced its next steps in many of the Section 301 digital services tax cases: The United States Trade Representative (USTR) today announced the next steps in its Section 301 investigations of Digital Service Taxes (DSTs) adopted or under consideration by ten U.S. trading partners. In January,

The Discrimination Standard under Section 301

This is from the Section 301 report on France’s Digital Services Tax issued by USTR earlier this week: A. France’s Digital Services Tax Discriminates Against U.S. Digital Companies The evidence collected in this investigation, including witness testimony, written comments, news reports, and expert commentary, indicates that the

The U.S. Defense in the Section 301 Case (DS543)

USTR has posted its first written submission in the DS543 case, which is China's complaint against the U.S. Section 301 measures. Among other things, there is a GATT Article XX(a) public morals argument. I'll let readers be the judge of all this. I wanted