A recently reached U.S.-Japan free trade deal makes up 90 percent of the losses farmers experienced because the U.S. dropped out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, during a Sept. 17 call with reporters. "I haven’t seen anything on paper, but according to [the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative], it puts us on this level playing field with our trading partners," he said.
Ian Cohen
Ian Cohen, Deputy Managing Editor, is a reporter with Export Compliance Daily and its sister publications International Trade Today and Trade Law Daily, where he covers export controls, sanctions and international trade issues. He previously worked as a local government reporter in South Florida. Ian graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Florida in 2017 and lives in Washington, D.C. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2019.
The trade staff of the House Ways and Means Committee told Democrats who are anxious for a ratification vote on the new NAFTA that the rewrite "will be ready for a vote as soon as it is ready; no sooner, and also no later," in a memo that was structured as an imagined dialogue between a member who wants a vote and the committee chairman, who has a big say on when that vote happens.
The U.S. and Japan agreed to a trade deal that will see Japan buy more U.S. agricultural goods, including beef, pork, dairy and corn, the countries announced during the G-7 summit in France.
CHICAGO -- CBP plans to present its 21st Century Customs Framework to senior leadership for approval in August and introduce policy changes within the next year, a CBP official said at the agency’s Trade Symposium on July 23. CBP is finalizing a “fairly detailed roadmap” for the framework and expects it to make “measurable, fundamental changes,” Brandon Lord, CBP’s deputy executive director for trade, policy and programs, said during the conference. Since the agency announced the framework with a request for public comments in December (see 1812200003), Lord said CBP has tried to pinpoint “substantive changes” the agency can make through policy updates. CBP has focused on three issues from the public comments, he said: “streamlining the entry process,” “seamless information sharing” and creating a “robust framework for the e-commerce environment.”
CHICAGO -- The immigration crisis at the U.S.’s southwestern border is stretching CBP’s resources, slowing customs procedures and impacting trade enforcement, CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said, speaking at the agency’s Trade Symposium in Chicago on July 23. At one point, the crisis caused CBP’s cargo processing time to nearly quadruple, Morgan said. “We know the criticality of this. We understand that this is a big deal,” he said. “But at the same time, we’re dealing with an unprecedented humanitarian national security crisis at the southwestern border.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce expects the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to pass before Congress’ August recess, two Chamber of Commerce officials said, saying Democrats’ issues with the bill are “bridgeable.” “We do think that we can see USMCA move forward before the August break,” said John Murphy, the Chamber’s senior vice president for international policy. “We want to get on with it. We need the certainty that USMCA will provide.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was told by the administration that no trade deal with China will be reached this week, potentially paving the way for President Donald Trump to increase tariffs by May 10. Pelosi, interviewed May 8 during a Washington Post Live webcast, said she was told by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on May 6 that China planned to “take a walk” from any agreement proposed this week. A rejected deal from China could result in increased tariffs on Chinese goods; the tariffs already are set to rise from 10 percent to 25 percent on May 10 (see 1905050001). When asked if she is confident there is any way a deal could get done this week, Pelosi said no. “Let me just say that, first of all, I never believed the Chinese were going to honor what they said they were going to do,” she said.
The Trump administration clearly underestimated the number of product exclusion requests that would be filed under the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, said Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration Matthew Borman, during an April 2 Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Commerce Department’s 2019 budget request. Borman said Commerce’s prediction was based on the number of exclusion requests it received during a “steel safeguard action” taken during 2001. Borman said that about 6,000 requests were submitted then. “Obviously there turned out to be quite a few more in the current process,” Borman said, adding that Commerce has processed more than 45,000 of the estimated 85,000 exclusion requests it has received.
American manufacturers expect a trade deal between the U.S. and China to be announced within “the next couple of weeks” but think tariffs on Chinese goods will likely remain in place for longer, said Ryan Ong, director of international economic affairs policy for the National Association of Manufacturers. Ong, speaking at an export controls and customs information session at KPMG offices in Washington on March 6, said the increasingly “intense negotiations” between the U.S. and China during the last few months suggest a deal is close.
Several industry representatives voiced frustrations about e-commerce’s impact on U.S. importers at a March 1 CBP meeting (see 1902110020), calling for a more streamlined filing system and a crackdown on foreign sellers. A common complaint by the industry leaders was a lack of transparency from foreign companies when they sell through online marketplaces. The public meeting, titled “The 21st Century Customs Framework,” featured multiple panels of industry representatives offering suggestions and criticisms of the current customs system to government officials from CBP, the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission, among others.