"Lawmakers launch bill to ‘protect’ US firms from EU due diligence requirements" 14 March 2025

...Republican Senator Bill Hagerty has introduced a bill to prohibit US companies across a range of extractive and manufacturing industries from participating in foreign due diligence legislation...

The Prevent Regulatory Overreach from Turning Essential Companies into Targets (PROTECT USA) Act states that no foreign due diligence law that goes further than US law may be applied to US companies. It also gives the US President free range to take “any action [they] determine is in the public interest to protect an entity integral to the national interests of the United States from an adverse action related to a foreign sustainability due diligence regulation”...

Around 315 US companies are estimated to fall under the scope of the EU’s Corporate Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)... They include tech giants Google, Amazon and Apple, agribusiness firms ADM and Cargill, manufacturing firms like Ball Corporation, Caterpillar and General Electric, as well as oil and gas companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron...

The move comes as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) is under threat... After the EU Parliament election last June, the European Commission launched a U-turn on its own regulations with the so-called omnibus proposal... This would effectively make the law “toothless” according to CSDDD advocates. The omnibus directive is set to face its first vote in a deeply divided EU Parliament on April 1.