US lawmakers push Washington’s trade envoy to bring market access into Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy

Name: Global supply chain crisis bites in US cities as store shelves empty with rising demand
Uploaded: 2022-03-31T22:56:11.000Z
Duration: 1 min 30 s
Description: Global supply chain crisis bites in US cities as store shelves empty with rising demand

President Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework aims to improve environmental and labour standards

Indo-Pacific nations ‘are crying out for free trade negotiations with us’, said one senator

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US Trade Representative Katherine Tai testifies at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on President Joe Biden’s trade agenda in Washington on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

Joshua Cartwrightin Washington

Published: 6:56am, 1 Apr 2022

Washington’s top trade envoy came under fire from lawmakers on Thursday in a second day of testimony about US President Joe Biden’s policies to improve economic engagement with more countries as a way to counter China’s growing influence.

Much of the criticism aimed at US Trade Representative Katherine Tai centred on what lawmakers see as a lack of market access in Biden’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) initiative, which aims to improve environmental and labour standards as part of what the administration calls a “worker-centred” trade policy.

“Why take the carrot of market access off the table?” asked the committee’s ranking member Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho.

“We’ve got nations in the Indo-Pacific who are crying out for free trade negotiations with us so that they can strengthen their relationship to us economically, rather than being tied to China,” he said.

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Global supply chain crisis bites in US cities as store shelves empty with rising demand

Released in February, the IPEF makes “open principles” governing cross-border data flows; supply chains “that are diverse, open and predictable” and “shared investments in decarbonisation and clean energy” its key goals in addition to labour and environmental considerations, according to a White House fact sheet.