The Year Ahead: U.S. Trade Agenda - 2016 Slim On Trade Bills, But Debate Will Abound On China, TPP, WTO

摘要

The new year is unlikely to bring as much legislative action on trade as 2015 due to the upcoming presidential and congressional elections and an outgoing administration. But that does not mean that trade issues like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the highly political issue of changing the methodology applied to China in antidumping (AD) cases will not be heavily debated. The outstanding trade legislation that is on the immediate agenda is the customs enforcement bill that failed to make the cut in the Senate in 2015, although the House passed it. The bill contains enforcement steps as well corrections to provisions that passed as part of the fast-track and trade preference legislation, which nobody wanted to change in those bills for fear of stalling them (Inside U.S. Trade, Dec. 18, 2015).