[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 46 (Thursday, March 7, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 16608-16610]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-04869]


=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES TRADE REPRESENTATIVE

[Docket Number USTR-2024-0002]


Request for Comments on Promoting Supply Chain Resilience

AGENCY: Office of the United States Trade Representative.

ACTION: Request for comments and notice of public hearing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) 
requests comments and will hold a public hearing to inform objectives 
and strategies that advance U.S. supply chain resilience in trade 
negotiations, enforcement, and other initiatives.

DATES: You must submit comments and responses in accordance with the 
following schedule:
    April 12, 2024: Due date for filing requests to appear and a 
summary of expected testimony at the public hearing.
    April 22, 2024: Due date for submission of written comments.
    May 2, 2024: USTR will convene a public hearing in the main hearing 
room of the U.S. International Trade Commission, 500 E Street SW, 
Washington, DC 20436 beginning at 10:00 a.m.
    May 16, 2024: Due date for submission of post-hearing written 
comments from persons who testified at the public hearing.

ADDRESSES: USTR strongly prefers electronic submissions made through 
the Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov 
(Regulations.gov). The instructions for submitting comments are in 
sections IV and V below. The docket number is USTR-2024-0002. For 
alternatives to on-line submissions, please contact Sandy McKinzy at 
(202) 395-9483 in advance of the deadline.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Special Counsel Victor Ban at (202) 
395-5962 or [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

    Strengthening our supply chains is a critical component of the 
Biden-Harris Administration's efforts to advance our worker-centered 
trade policy, create sustainable economic growth, ensure that our 
economy is more resilient in the face of supply shocks, and enhance 
U.S. economic security. From the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia's full-
scale invasion of Ukraine, Americans have felt first-hand the impacts 
of supply chain disruptions, which include volatile prices for critical 
consumer goods and medical products and widespread product shortages 
that contribute to inflationary dynamics. Further, global supply chains 
have been designed to maximize short-term efficiency and minimize 
costs, leading to greater vulnerability and unsustainable dependencies, 
and furthermore have promoted trade that may not reflect our core 
values, like labor standards and environmental protection.
    This is why the Administration is undertaking a whole-of-government 
effort to proactively strengthen domestic manufacturing and to secure 
trusted supply chains through strategic arrangements with trusted 
partners (friend-shoring) and with regional partners (near-shoring). 
The President is using all the tools at his disposal, including new 
authorities under the CHIPS and Science Act, Inflation Reduction Act, 
and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to incentivize the re-shoring and 
domestic expansion of critical supply chains. Enduring resilience will 
require new investments in infrastructure, new incentives to increase 
the supply of key inputs, and new forms of cooperation with allies and 
trading partners to prevent and withstand supply chain disruptions and 
mitigate risks of price spikes and volatility that could contribute to 
inflationary dynamics.
    To advance these policy priorities on behalf of the American 
people, USTR has been crafting a new approach to trade and investment 
policy that promotes supply chain resilience. Resilient supply chains 
provide a range of sources for critical inputs; adapt, rebound, and 
recover with agility when faced with economic shocks; uphold labor 
rights and environmental protections; and strengthen the domestic 
manufacturing base and workforce that drive economic growth and world-
class American innovation.
    Over the last several decades, however, U.S. trade and investment 
policy--including rules related to supply chains--were designed to 
incentivize short-term cost-efficiency and drive tariff liberalization, 
with the goal of creating an unfettered global marketplace. This 
approach helped shape producers' decision-making that, in many cases, 
fostered geographically concentrated and operationally complex supply 
chains. For instance, natural disasters overseas in 2011 disrupted 
``just-in-time'' supply chains with significant negative impacts for 
U.S. automakers. In geopolitically fraught regions, the challenges are 
frequently even greater; when low cost is the driver of sourcing 
decisions, and absent

[[Page 16609]]

incentives for improving standards over time, production becomes 
increasingly consolidated in economies with lower labor standards, 
weaker environmental protections, and transparency and governance 
challenges.\1\ This is the race to the bottom. It leaves critical 
sectors vulnerable to non-market policies and practices, economic 
coercion, and other unfair trade practices, and deprives consumers of 
goods whose production reflects our core values. It has also 
contributed to the hollowing out of the American industrial base and 
vital U.S. jobs, and harmed many of our communities and working 
families, undermining support for democracy itself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ The original Bretton Woods vision for trade, embodied in the 
Charter of the International Trade Organization, included labor 
standards and exemptions from certain trade rules for conservation 
agreements. However, the rules never entered into force because 
certain American trade associations, in conjunction with Members of 
Congress who supported weakening domestic labor rights, opposed U.S. 
ratification of the Charter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Under the Biden-Harris Administration, USTR endeavors to empower 
American workers and businesses, large and small, that are 
recalibrating and rebuilding secure and trusted supply chains for 
resilience, through a new approach to trade and investment policy--one 
that is supported by innovative strategies, tools, and mechanisms, and 
also integrated with domestic economic policy to position U.S. 
manufacturing and services for continued leadership and 
competitiveness. This approach also entails collaborating with trading 
partners and allies to incentivize a race to the top through stronger 
coordination and alignment on labor and environmental protections 
within trusted networks, and to build our middle classes together, 
rather than pitting them against each other.
    Through trade negotiations, efforts to enforce fair trade, and 
other engagement with trading partners, USTR seeks to advance and 
implement these principles of supply chain resilience--transparency, 
diversity, security, and sustainability. To promote transparency, USTR 
confronts supply chain risks arising from unfair trade and competition 
practices among our trading partners. To enhance diversity, USTR 
creates opportunities for businesses of all sizes to increase sourcing 
options, including those located domestically and in underserved 
communities.\2\ To bolster security, USTR takes trade action to 
facilitate the strengthening of agile supply chains with trusted 
networks sharing our values, including through friend-shoring and near-
shoring in furtherance of high-quality economic growth. And to support 
sustainability, USTR works to promote respect for labor standards and 
environmental protections governing global supply chains and to 
strengthen those standards and protections.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \2\ The term ``underserved communities'' refers to those 
populations, as well as geographic communities, that have been 
systematically denied the opportunity to participate fully in 
aspects of economic, social, and civic life, as defined in Executive 
Orders 13985 and 14020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    By strengthening resilient supply chains, trade and investment 
policy can help ensure the prosperity of American workers, businesses, 
and communities, foster a broad American industrial base, and fortify 
our partnerships with trusted partners and allies.

II. Public Comments

    USTR invites comments to inform the development of trade and 
investment policy initiatives that promote supply chain resilience, as 
outlined above. Responses should:
     Be written in clear, concise, and plain language.
     Include the name and a brief description of the individual 
or organization submitting the comment.
     If applicable, identify the specific question(s) the 
comment addresses.
    Commenters should submit information related to one or more of the 
following questions:
    1. How can U.S. trade and investment policy, in conjunction with 
relevant domestic incentive measures, better support growth and 
investment in domestic manufacturing and services?
    2. What existing or new tools could help ensure that growth in 
domestic manufacturing and services does not undergo the same 
offshoring that we have experienced over the past few decades?
    3. How can U.S. trade and investment policy promote a virtuous 
cycle and ``race to the top'' through stronger coordination and 
alignment on labor and environmental protections within trusted 
networks among regional and like-minded trading partners and allies?
    4. What are examples of trade and investment policy tools that 
potentially could be deployed in the following sectors to enhance 
supply chain resilience? In these sectors, what features of the current 
policy landscape are working well, or less well, to advance resilience?
     Aerospace and aerospace components.
     Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.
     Automobiles and automotive parts.
     Call centers, business processing operations, and related 
services.
     Critical minerals, including for electric vehicle and 
large-scale energy storage batteries, and related recycling.
     Metals.
     Pharmaceutical and medical goods.
     Semiconductors, microelectronics, and inputs thereto.
     Renewable energy generation, transmission, and storage, 
including solar and wind technology and inputs thereto.
     Textiles, such as yarns, fabrics, apparel, and other 
finished goods.
    5. What additional sectors may need dedicated trade and investment 
policy approaches to advance supply chain resilience? What should such 
approaches entail? With respect to those sectors, what features of the 
current policy landscape are working well, or less well, to advance 
resilience?
    6. Across sectors, how does access to capital equipment, 
manufacturing equipment, and technology support supply chain resilience 
for U.S. producers, and is there a role for trade and investment 
policy?
    7. How can the development of technical standards and regulations 
support supply chain resilience?
    8. There is concern that preferential rules of origin in free trade 
agreements can operate as a ``backdoor'' benefiting goods and/or firms 
from countries that are not party to the agreements and are not bound 
by labor and environmental commitments. What actions could be taken to 
mitigate these risks and maximize production in the parties? What 
policies could support strong rules of origin and adherence to rules of 
origin?
    9. What factors are driving supply chain and sourcing decisions, 
and how does trade and investment policy impact them? How do companies 
factor geopolitical risk into their global and domestic manufacturing 
and sourcing decisions? How do companies take into account traceability 
and transparency considerations in supply chain and sourcing decisions?
    10. To what extent is supply chain resilience shaping capital 
allocation decisions among industry and investors?
    11. How can supply chain resilience be measured, including the 
costs of insufficient resilience, and the impacts of trade and 
investment policy on resilience? What are appropriate quantitative or 
qualitative data to consider?
    12. How can U.S. trade and investment policy support supply chains 
that are inclusive of small disadvantaged businesses and underserved 
businesses, including minority-owned and women-owned businesses, 
veteran-owned businesses, service-disabled veteran owned small 
businesses, and HUBZone businesses,

[[Page 16610]]

and promote trade opportunities in underserved communities?

III. Hearing Participation

    USTR will convene a public hearing in the main hearing room of the 
U.S. International Trade Commission, 500 E Street SW, Washington, DC 
20436, beginning at 10:00 a.m. on May 2, 2024. You must submit requests 
to appear at the hearing by April 12, 2024. The request to appear must 
include a summary of testimony, and may be accompanied by a pre-hearing 
submission. Remarks at the hearing will be limited to five minutes to 
allow for possible questions from USTR staff. USTR may arrange regional 
hearings or meetings subsequent to the public hearing noted above.

IV. Requirements for Submissions

    To be assured of consideration, submit any request to appear at the 
hearing by the April 12, 2024 deadline, any written comments by the 
April 22, 2024 deadline, and any post-hearing written comments by the 
May 16, 2024 deadline. All submissions must be in English. USTR 
strongly encourages submissions via Regulations.gov. The docket number 
is USTR-2024-0002.
    To submit via Regulations.gov, use Docket Number USTR-2024-0002 in 
the `search for' field on the home page and click `search.' The site 
will provide a search-results page listing all documents associated 
with this docket. Find a reference to this notice by selecting `notice' 
under `document type' in the `refine documents results' section on the 
left side of the screen and click on the link entitled `comment.' 
Regulations.gov allows users to make submissions by filling in a `type 
comment' field, or by attaching a document using the `upload file' 
field. USTR prefers that you provide submissions in an attached 
document named according to the following protocol, as appropriate: 
Commenter Name or Organization_Supply Chain Resilience. If you provide 
submissions in an attached document, please type ``see attached 
comments'' in the `comment' field on the online submission form.
    Requests to appear at the hearing must include the name, address, 
email address, and telephone number of the person presenting the 
testimony in the `type comment' field. Attach a summary of the 
testimony, and a pre-hearing submission if provided, by attaching a 
document using the `upload file' field. The file name should include 
the name of the person who will be presenting the testimony. In 
addition, please submit a request to appear by email to Special Counsel 
Victor Ban, at [email protected]. In the subject line of the 
email, please include the name of the person who will be presenting the 
testimony, followed by `Request to Appear'. In the body of the email, 
include the name, address, email address, and telephone number of the 
person presenting testimony.
    USTR prefers submissions in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Adobe Acrobat 
(.pdf). If you use an application other than those two, please indicate 
the name of the application in the `type comment' field.
    Please include any information that might appear in a cover letter, 
exhibits, annexes, or other attachments in the same file as the comment 
itself, rather than submitting them as separate files.
    Please include the name, email address, and telephone number of an 
individual USTR can contact if there are issues or questions with the 
submission.
    You will receive a tracking number upon completion of the 
submission procedure at Regulations.gov. The tracking number is 
confirmation that Regulations.gov received your submission. Keep the 
confirmation for your records. USTR is not able to provide technical 
assistance for Regulations.gov.
    For further information on using Regulations.gov, please consult 
the resources provided on the website by clicking on `How to Use 
Regulations.gov ' on the bottom of the home page. You can contact the 
Regulations.gov help desk at [email protected] or 1-866-498-
2945 for help with technical questions on submitting comments on 
Regulations.gov.
    If you are unable to submit through Regulations.gov after seeking 
assistance from the help desk, please contact Sandy McKinzy at (202) 
395-9483 before transmitting your application and in advance of the 
deadline to arrange for an alternative method of transmission. USTR 
will not accept hand-delivered submissions. USTR may not consider 
submissions that you do not make in accordance with these instructions.
    General information concerning USTR is available at https://www.ustr.gov.

V. Business Confidential Information (BCI) Submissions

    If you ask USTR to treat information you submit as BCI, you must 
certify that the information is business confidential and that you 
would not customarily release it to the public. For any comments 
submitted electronically containing BCI, the file name of the business 
confidential version should begin with the characters `BCI.' You must 
clearly mark any page containing BCI with `BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL' on 
the top of that page. Filers of submissions containing BCI also must 
submit a public version that will be placed in the docket for public 
inspection. The file name of the public version should begin with the 
character `P.' Follow the `BCI' and `P' with the name of the individual 
or organization submitting the comments.

VI. Public Viewing of Review Submissions

    USTR will post written submissions in the docket for public 
inspection, except properly designated BCI. You can view comments on 
Regulations.gov by entering Docket Number USTR-2024-0002 in the search 
field on the home page.

Juan Millan,
Acting General Counsel, Office of the United States Trade 
Representative.
[FR Doc. 2024-04869 Filed 3-6-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3390-F4-P