Hi, Washington, after more than 130 countries cheered in support of a new international taxation plan last week, Washington is complaining about digital taxes again. The Ministry of Finance has warned the European Union that its planned digital tax will not come into effect with the new OECD agreement, and Katherine Tai has also “urged” Canada to abandon its digital tax plan. Expect to learn more about this in the coming weeks.

Our main content today is about the US fund for retraining workers who have fallen due to globalization. Those who were unemployed due to increased imports or the transfer of work overseas have less available cash, which has some important effects on the new government’s trade policy.

Concession waters Investigate the consequences of the Covid-19 outbreak in Yantian Port, Shenzhen.

Biden’s commitment to protecting American workers has been weakened

President Joe Biden’s efforts to formulate a “worker-centered” trade policy have just been hit by the US Congress.This is another story Very important The existing legislation expires unceremoniously.

The Workers’ Trade Adjustment Assistance Program is a US fund designed to help people who were unemployed due to global trade retrain and find new jobs. The program was restored to a more limited and less generous version on July 1. The program provides income support, job search and relocation allowances, and health insurance tax credits. It was first introduced by John F. Kennedy in 1962 and has been updated many times since.

Despite the efforts of a handful of Democrats on Capitol Hill, their support is now greatly reduced. It no longer applies to workers in the IT or service sector, only to workers in the manufacturing industry. You can state that the number of countries/regions to which your work has been sent is even more limited. The application time has been shortened from 26 weeks to 16 weeks. The state’s funding for training, relocation, and employment services has been cut by more than half, from US$450 million to US$220 million.

Although this means that the United States has drastically cut the wages of unemployed workers to help them find new jobs, but this happened very quietly. As a global insurance fund, it will now become more difficult to obtain. According to data from the Department of Labor, the proportion of black and minority workers applying for help is too high, and those who receive help are often older, and the proportion of applicants in their 50s is higher than their proportion in the labor force.

The number of people who received help declined last year. According to the Department of Labor’s 2020 reportIn 2020, 96,000 workers will be eligible for assistance, an increase of 6% from 2019. Only 23,000 people received any benefits, a decrease of 17% from the previous year. Although about half of those applying for assistance work in manufacturing, more than two-thirds of them are reemployed outside of manufacturing. Industrial states are often the biggest beneficiaries, but the state that receives the highest amount of federal cash in one-off amounts is California. In addition, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are all well-known recipients.

On the hill, the few Democrats who tried to update it were, in the Senate, Debbie Stabeno of Michigan and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, in the House of Representatives, Earl Blumenauer, and The chairman of Roads and Roads, Rich Neal, points to the committee. Blumenauer pointed out that the cost of inaction will “mostly fall on women and workers of color.” Some people call not only for renewal, but also for restructuring and expansion. Tim Meyer of Vanderbilt Law School Want to Provide assistance to people hurt by the U.S. trade war. Should include protectionism and tariffs, as well as liberalization and offshore outsourcing.

So, given Biden’s focus on worker-centric trade policies, why is aid hit?

One factor is that Republicans have traditionally viewed extended aid as a bargaining chip for Democrats to agree. Trade Promotion Agency renewsGranting the president the power to negotiate trade agreements outside of the country defines the goals of U.S. trade policy and also stipulates how these agreements can be approved by Congress after they are signed by negotiators. But since the trade promotion right expired last week, the bargaining chip element no longer exists.

Washington has a solid infrastructure to retrain workers who have lost their jobs. In the past decade, American workers have lost out to competitors in lower-wage countries and automation. In the next ten years, we suspect that this trend will reverse. Supermarket checkout counters will eventually be completely unattended, taxis may not need drivers, and robots may write this newsletter at some point. That is before you even consider the impact of globalization. But there is one other thing: when you say you want a worker-centric trade policy, it’s weird to let the key benefit plan that aims to retrain the injured workers expire—especially if you Is looking for votes for workers in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Concession waters

In late May, the Covid-19 outbreak among workers at the Yantian port in Shenzhen, China caused severe disruptions and caused container freight rates to soar to new highs. The situation is returning to normal, but the port is still catching up with the number of blank voyages—shipping companies skipped stops at the port—still well above the level before the outbreak.

“Although we can see the cargo passing through the port again, this incident is becoming one of the most disruptive events this year,” said Josh Brazil, vice president of marketing for project44, a logistics industry data platform. “This once again reminds shippers that disruptions can occur at any time, and it is becoming more and more important for them to fully understand the freight situation, diversify and strengthen the supply chain, and do everything possible to prevent such incidents in advance. In today’s world, avoid.” Claire Jones

Trade ties

Headlines announcing an agreement Global tax treatiesI do it for welcome reading. But what about the details?Although the agenda is made up of we, It may not be as easy as many people think Congress Through the transaction, because this Slice explanation. Washington carry on put pressure on Brussels, Calling on the EU to cancel the plan Separate digital tax An agreement based on a global agreement. We reported earlier this week between the US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and the European Commission Vice President Margaret Vestag that is progressing well. But the United States continues to insist that Europe’s own path in this regard may undermine negotiations on a global agreement.

Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute, Washington think tank, studies how to protect Semiconductor Supply Chain A better way than the United States has tried so far.

Nikkei report ($) that Huawei’s chip design department Has reached an agreement with a Shenzhen-based chip tool manufacturer to circumvent US export restrictions to its former supplier Taiwan. They also have a piece Five things to know About China’s cybersecurity regulatory agency. Data Security Didi was suppressed after its listing in New York, becoming the latest battleground in tensions between China and the United States. Claire Jones