The U.S. will tighten quotas on Brazilian steel exports because the steel market has contracted in 2020, President Donald Trump said in a proclamation, issued at 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 28. Domestic producers have shipped 15% less across the first half of 2020 than in the previous year, which is more than the decline in demand, Trump said. Imports from most countries have declined this year in a manner commensurate with this contraction, whereas imports from Brazil have decreased only slightly, the proclamation said.
During the monthly Dispute Settlement Body meeting at the World Trade Organization, the European Union said it adopted “additional and extraordinary” compliance measures by withdrawing all the remaining subsidies for Airbus on Aug. 21, and they said that was “substantially in excess” of what's required by the WTO rules. They said they did this in order to convince the U.S. to withdraw its tariffs on European goods, and with the intention that they would not impose tariffs over Boeing subsidies, after a negotiated settlement. “It is not in the interests of anyone that the European Union and the United States now proceed to, or continue, mutually assured retaliation, and certainly not in the current economic climate,” they said.
Twenty-three senators from both political parties urged U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to press Canada to uphold its promises to give U.S. dairy exporters more market access. In a letter, released by Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., Aug. 26, they said that they agree with concerns about enforcement of USMCA dairy provisions expressed in a July letter sent by House members (see 2007020040), and that they are concerned that Canada's plans to fill its quotas are not consistent with those provisions. “Canada must not be permitted to effectively recreate the harmful impacts of Canada’s highly trade-distortive Classes 6 and 7 milk pricing programs,” the Aug. 25 letter said. “Canada must ... clearly establish prices for any new classes based on the end use of dairy products, and ensure that export surcharges for certain dairy products are implemented properly.”
Daimler Trucks North America is raising alarms on changes to the steel and aluminum purchases requirement, the ability to use accumulation for regional value content with non-originating parts, and the treatment of returned goods within the USMCA. The company also identified ambiguities with the labor value content rule, and errors and omissions in tariff classifications in Note 11 that cause problems for compliance.
Although bills renewing the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership were offered in the last Congress without action, and this year's bill has been waiting 11 months, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said advocates of the program shouldn't worry it will expire at the end of September. Grassley, in response to an International Trade Today question during a conference call with reporters Aug. 27, said renewal is probably something that can pass the Senate by unanimous consent.
Moldova's Tudor Ulianovschi told the Washington International Trade Association that the fact that he's coming from a neutral country is an advantage in his candidacy for director-general of the World Trade Organization. Ulianovschi, who was speaking Aug. 26 on a WITA webinar, served as foreign minister of Moldova in 2018 and 2019, and during that time Moldova became a member of the WTO government procurement agreement.
After the first high-level review of the phase one trade deal, the principals talked about progress and ensuring the success of the U.S.-China trade agreement, but some believe the happy talk can't obscure that China and the U.S. are disentangling their mutual dependency in tech goods and services. “There is a re-alignment that is happening in real time,” Rideau Potomac Strategy Group President Eric Miller said in an Aug. 25 phone interview, the day after the call. U.S. and Chinese trade officials reemphasized their commitment to the phase one agreement during the Aug. 24 call, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said.
The Trump administration's use of tariffs on steel and aluminum, China tensions and the threat of tariffs on French products in retaliation for digital taxes have prompted constituents to lobby on trade like never before, said Nasim Fussell, a Holland & Knight partner who recently left her position as chief international trade counsel for the Senate Finance Committee. That constituent interest elevated trade for some senators who had not been hearing from constituents in the past.
The World Trade Organization largely sided with Canada in finding that the Commerce Department miscalculated government support for softwood lumber exporters, both by using Nova Scotia benchmarks to apply to companies in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Québec, and by deciding that the sawmills were being sold electricity at below-market rates.
CBP is still working out of some details around the recent policy shift for Section 321 shipments (see 2008040044), an agency official said during an Aug. 20 call with trade professionals. CBP said that it is finding a significant number -- though not a majority -- of the millions of packages that enter the U.S. under de minimis in a month do not qualify for that category. Jim Swanson, CBP director-cargo and conveyance security and controls, said the agency is crunching data to see which shippers have been violating de minimis guidelines most frequently.