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Margaret Spiegelman

Margaret Spiegelman

Margaret Spiegelman is an associate editor with Inside U.S. Trade.

Archived Articles

Democratic senators call for higher tariffs on Chinese EVs

Three Democratic senators on Thursday urged the Biden administration to take “additional action” to address what they contend is a national security threat posed China’s auto sector, including by raising tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Senate Finance Committee member Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Michigan Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters lauded the administration’s efforts to support the U.S. auto industry as it makes the transition to...

Tai: Some ‘discomfort’ will be key to successful USMCA review

The U.S., Mexico and Canada shouldn't get “too comfortable” with their renegotiated tripartite trade pact, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said on Wednesday, citing new challenges – in particular, those posed by China – that the three countries will have to contend with when they sit down in 2026 to review the deal. Tai spoke about the review, mandated under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, at an event at the Brookings Institution . Unless the three countries agree to extend the agreement...

House Oversight Committee chair opens probe into USTR digital shift

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee is launching an investigation into the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s consultations on a decision to withdraw longstanding U.S. positions on digital trade at the World Trade Organization – and demanding a slew of records on communications about digital trade with progressive groups after an earlier request went largely unfulfilled, according to the panel chair. Chair James Comer (R-KY) announced the investigation and called for the documents in a March 4 letter to...

Mexican mine must halt work to resolve dispute, U.S. tells RRM panel

A mine in Zacatecas, Mexico, must cease operations as a first step toward remediating a labor dispute with a long, knotty history, the U.S. told a U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement dispute panel last week during a first-of-its-kind hearing under the deal’s rapid-response mechanism. In its closing argument at the end of a two-day hearing in Mexico City, the U.S. said halting work at the San Martín Mine, operated by Grupo México, was needed to return negotiating leverage to unionized workers on strike...

U.S., Mexico gird for first USMCA rapid-response panel hearing

A U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement panel is set to hold a two-day hearing on a labor dispute involving a mine owned by a major Mexican company – the first such dispute elevated to a panel under the trade agreement’s novel rapid-response labor tool. The hearing, set to take place Feb. 28 and 29 in Mexico City, was announced on the USMCA Secretariat website . It will be livestreamed. A verification of the mine, in Zacatecas, Mexico, is set for Feb. 26, according...

U.S. adds rebar to monitoring list in developing steel deal with Mexico

The U.S. has added rebar to a list of products to be subject to “immediate monitoring” by Mexico in a developing arrangement on steel and aluminum trade, a senior U.S. trade official said this week, as Washington presses Mexico to urgently address U.S. concerns about import levels and transparency into products originating from third countries. Sources last week told Inside U.S. Trade that Mexico and the U.S. were nearing an agreement that would require Mexico to implement an export...

Dombrovskis: EU wants ‘real progress’ on green trade, economic security by TTC6

The European Commission wants to deliver concrete outcomes in areas like conformity assessment for green goods and “ensuring resilient supply chains” by the next meeting of the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council, the bloc’s trade chief told European lawmakers on Monday, saying the ministerial marks a key moment for the two sides to distill their efforts into results. The ministerial, expected to take place in early April in Belgium, is the last TTC meeting on the agenda “in this political...

USTR expands RRM’s use to food sector, touts more wins at auto plants

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative last week announced it was expanding its use of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s rapid-response mechanism to food manufacturing and touted what it called two more wins for workers at auto-parts facilities in Mexico following actions facilitated under the novel trade tool. In a statement last Friday , USTR said the U.S. had asked Mexico “to review whether workers at the RV Fresh Foods S.A. de C.V. facility, which produces guacamole in Uruapan in the...

Sources: U.S., Mexico closing in on deal to address steel import ‘surge’

The U.S. and Mexico are nearing an agreement to address U.S. concerns that rising volumes of steel imports from Mexico are flooding the American market, two sources say. In 2019, the countries agreed to set up processes to monitor their steel and aluminum trade after the Trump administration said it would lift tariffs imposed on imports of the metals from Mexico. Since that agreement went effect, though, U.S. industry representatives and some key lawmakers say they have seen a sharp...

Tai: Pre-MC13 mood is positive, but progress calls for ‘pragmatism’

As U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and her counterparts from around the world gear up for the 13th World Trade Organization ministerial conference later this month, the collective mood is “much more positive” compared to the last time the ministers were preparing to meet, according to Tai, who says “pragmatism” will be key as members seek to make progress on WTO reform and other key issues. “If I compare how I feel, and how I think my counterparts are feeling...

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