Washington Update

The House Select Committee on the CCP is pushing for tougher enforcement of the US ban on imports from China’s Xinjiang province. Committee leadership has called for expanding screening measures, adding more Chinese firms to a forced labor blacklist, and lowering the de minimis threshold.

During a Wednesday hearing on US capital flows to China, the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) outlined its favored approach to regulating outbound investment: The Preventing Adversaries from Developing Critical Capabilities Act. The bill is similar to the executive order (EO) on outbound investment that President Joe Biden signed last summer, as it takes a sectoral approach to screening outbound investment.

In a letter first publicly released on Monday, Chair of the Select Committee on the CCP Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) urged Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai to “utilize all existing trade authorities” to address potential actions by China that distort the market for older-generation microchips.

Last week, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) further extended tariff exclusions for 77 COVID-19 related goods and 352 non-medical products from China until May 31, 2024. The exclusions were set to expire at the end of 2023 and cover a range of products from masks and gloves to industrial components and bicycles.

Last week, the Select Committee on the CCP approved a report that included more than 100 recommendations on trade and economic policy. If enacted, these recommendations would drastically change the US-China commercial relationship.

On Saturday, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo participated in the Reagan National Defense Forum, where she emphasized the need for the United States to remain the global leader in critical technologies like semiconductors. She urged Congress to increase the budget for the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and make the export control enforcement office “more muscular.”

On Wednesday, lawmakers convened for the first full conference committee to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA is one of the last must-pass bills left on the ledger this year, and there is friction between the Senate-approved version that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in July and the House version, which passed along party lines and includes more politically charged provisions.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping met face to face for the first time in over a year on the sidelines of APEC in San Francisco. According to a White House readout, the leaders had a candid and constructive discussion and agreed to strengthen cooperation in several areas.

On Tuesday, the White House confirmed that it has reached an agreement “in principle” for President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping to meet on the sidelines of the APEC Leaders Meeting in San Francisco taking place November 11 to 17. The agreement was announced after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Biden, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and a delegation of US business leaders in Washington last week.

USCBC will be filing comments with the Bureau of Industry and Security on the two new interim final rules on advanced computers/supercomputers (AC/S IFR) (PDF) and semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME IFR) (PDF). We plan on filing one comment letter to address both rules.