Last Tuesday, eight Republican and five Democratic senators called on Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai to “stop the unsustainable increase in Mexican steel imports — especially steel tubes” and reminded them that in May 2019, the US canceled its 25% tariffs on Mexican steel imports as part of an agreement that stipulates that if such imports “increase significantly beyond their historical volumes…the US can reimpose those tariffs.”
According to the senators, the annual volume of imports of iron and steel from Mexico has increased 73% over the volumes registered in the period 2015-2017, that of semi-finished steel 120% and that of steel tubes 577 percent. They claim that importers misclassified Mexican steel tube exports to hide the increase.
The legislators ask that the Biden administration initiate consultations to correct this increase and return imports to their historical volumes, with quotas if necessary and that, if “the Mexican government refuses to remedy this violation of the agreement, other mechanisms be considered to guarantee compliance with the agreement, including reapplying the 25 percent rates.
A day later, the chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Subcommittee on Commerce sent a letter to Tai and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack reiterating their “substantial concerns with the actions of the Government of Mexico to restrict imports.” from the US of genetically modified corn and other agricultural biotech products… measures that are clearly inconsistent with Mexico’s obligations under the USMCA, could dissolve critical agricultural exports to Mexico, threaten the livelihoods of US farmers and undermine regional economic integration. They add that “it is time to aggressively enforce the USMCA by initiating a formal dispute against these measures. We must engage with the Government of Mexico from a position of strength, not weakness.”
As if these two issues did not represent serious problems for our country, a few days earlier, on February 9, 21 state attorneys general asked Joe Biden to designate “the Sinaloa Cartel, the CJNG and other Mexican cartels” as international terrorist organizations.” which will give US state and federal agencies “greater powers to freeze cartel assets, deny their members entry into the country, and allow prosecutors to impose harsher punishments against those who provide them with support material”.
Despite the fact that the relationship between Mexico and the US is becoming more complicated every day, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador assures that there are no problems between the two countries because Biden is a good man.
Biden will be everything good that AMLO tells us, but he is not dump and to be re-elected in 2024 it is convenient for him to toughen his government’s attitude towards our country, he will do it, and Mexicans will pay billions of dollars for it .
Source: El Economista
By: Eduardo Ruiz-Healy
