Farmers who produce several sorts of commodities continue to regret the U.S. retreat from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and want the administration to prioritize opening markets for their goods in Southeast Asia, according to a Farmers for Free Trade panel held virtually.
Thirteen Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., wrote a letter asking U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to increase trade engagement with countries like Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, Ecuador and Colombia. The letter, sent Oct. 13, noted that while the U.S. is the biggest trading partner of Central American countries and Caribbean nations, China is the No. 1 trading partner off the continent for all but two countries in South America, and in many cases, such as Argentina, Chile and Brazil, their trade with China overshadows trade with their immediate neighbors. In South America, only Ecuador and Colombia buy and sell more to the U.S. than they do to China, and Colombia has a free trade agreement with the U.S.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai called on the World Trade Organization to conclude the fisheries subsidies agreement, and said that discussions in Geneva about how to revive the Appellate Body should instead focus on what could incentivize countries to reach an agreement before years and years of litigation.
President Joe Biden announced Oct. 13 that after administration officials negotiated for weeks, they convinced the Port of Los Angeles to operate 24/7, convinced the labor unions to staff those 60 extra hours, and got commitments from major shippers like Walmart, Samsung, FedEx and UPS to use the time, too.
A bill that would add more data elements a year after passage to the Seafood Import Monitoring Program passed out of the Natural Resources Committee by voice vote Oct. 13. The bill's authors recently received a letter from the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America saying that the bill would be "crushing to the import process." The letter, sent Oct. 8, also said, "No one wants illegal or fraudulent seafood, or seafood produced by forced labor, to enter the United States. Certainly, our industry is strongly committed to safe and legally compliant supply chains. Compliance is what we do. The challenge is: how best to ensure integrity in seafood supply chains. SIMP already collects more data at entry than just about any other agency for 1,100 species of seafood."
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she talked about "ongoing efforts to address global overcapacity in the steel and aluminum sectors and shared challenges posed by non-market economies" when she met with her European Union counterpart on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Sorrento, Italy. The EU did not issue its own readout of the meeting, but Valdis Dombrovskis tweeted, "Met [the] USTR, Ambassador Tai, to continue our discussions on finding a settlement on the Trump steel & aluminium tariffs #232. The work continues." He has previously said that an agreement on Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum has to be reached by early November in order to prevent retaliatory tariffs from doubling on Dec. 1. Those retaliatory tariffs have hurt the export of American spirits.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., leads a group of progressive House members who blocked a vote on an infrastructure bill that would spend $17 billion on ports over 10 years. On a press call, she told reporters, "We must and we will achieve our goals of passing both (bills)," referring to the infrastructure bill that already passed the Senate, and a broader spending program that mostly addresses social, educational, health and climate spending. However, $3.5 billion of that broader "soft infrastructure" bill would also benefit ports as currently proposed, for electrifying port operations.
The U.S. summary of a weekend call between U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and China's Vice Premier Liu He, the lead negotiator of the phase one agreement, did not use the word tariffs, though it said the two countries would "consult on certain outstanding issues."
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development announced Oct. 8 that it has reached an agreement on a global minimum tax, and a way for countries whose residents access digital services to collect taxes from the companies that provide those services, even if those companies have no local physical presence. These are known as Pillar One and Pillar Two in the OECD.
Heavy truck parts destined for a U.S. assembly plant cannot qualify for USMCA benefits under tariff shift rules, CBP told Mitsubishi Electric's Automotive division. Under USMCA, the original equipment starter must have 60% North American content under a net cost method, or 70% under a transaction value method; that percentage will go up in July 2024 to 64% or 74%, respectively, and 70% or 80% in 2027.