Ending
a nine-month exile while the third floor of the U.S. Chamber's
headquarters building was refurbished, the staff of the International
Division are moving back on November 18 and 21 from locations in Crystal
City and at 1750 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. We look forward to visiting with
you in our newly modernized offices at the headquarters building.
With
the current continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal budget
expiring today, the House and Senate on November 17 passed the
Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act (H.R. 2112). The
legislation combines an extension of the CR through December 16 with the
first "minibus" appropriations bill, which includes the fiscal 2012
Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-Housing and
Urban Development appropriations bills. Following are some of the trade
issues addressed by the "minibus":
On
November 17, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) and Ranking
Member Sander Levin (D-MI), along with all members of the Ways and
Means Committee, sent a letter
to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Commerce Secretary John
Bryson about the upcoming meeting of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on
Commerce and Trade (JCCT). The letter highlights the need to address
long-standing trade and industrial policy concerns, improve U.S. market
access in China, use commercially meaningful metrics to measure the
effectiveness of commitments, and further China's rebalancing of its
economy.
On
November 16, the President's Export Council (PEC) held a meeting in
Washington, D.C. The meeting was broadcast live via whitehouse.gov, and a
transcript of the proceedings of the PEC meeting along with a link to
watch the meeting will be forthcoming. The PEC released a statement about
the progress on the trade agenda: "In recent months, significant
progress has been made on multiple fronts on the international trade and
economic agenda. We commend you and your Administration for this
progress, which is all the more notable and critical during these
challenging economic times, and we urge you to continue to push forward
on these and other fronts to open markets to U.S. exports and expand our
ability to create U.S. jobs."
On
November 16, the Chamber along with nine other business organizations
sent a letter to EU Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht and U.S.
Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs
Michael Froman welcoming the reinvigoration of the U.S.-EU Investment
Dialogue and urging support for strong principles on the treatment of
foreign investment by third countries. The letter states:"The
October meeting of U.S. and EU investment policy officials, the first
since 2008, clearly re-established that the European Union and the
United States share a common agenda on investment issues, as outlined in
our July 14 letter as well as the May 2008 Joint Statement. We look
forward to further active and substantive efforts by you as TEC
Co-chairs and your administrations in this area."