[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]
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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.
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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.
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\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.
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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.
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\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.
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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]
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