The General Services Administration has granted $15 million to CBP from the Technology Modernization Fund to pay for the work to move revenue collection at the agency from a mainframe computer to a more modern approach. Currently, CBP used ACE to collect more than $80 billion in the last fiscal year, and the Automated Commercial System, which is the last mainframe segment of ACE, is used to collect tariffs, taxes and fees, CBP said in a July 31 news release. The ACS runs 3.9 million lines of COBOL, a 30-year-old programming language. By moving the revenue system to a cloud-based system, CBP will no longer use mainframe computers for any of its functions. It will “achieve operational efficiencies that will decrease its current software expenses and reduce other existing development and maintenance expenditures. CBP anticipates it will have a greater ability to serve its mission by modernizing the basic functionality of its collections system,” CBP said. The award was announced July 27.
Witnesses that represent companies that make masks, gowns and face shields, a group purchasing organization that provides that gear to healthcare organizations, and a hospital chief supply chain officer told the Senate Finance Committee that while moving more production from Asia to the U.S. and close-by countries would help in the next crisis, it's not the solution to the shortages the country has.
Former U.S. trade representative Bob Zoellick laughed when a webinar moderator asked him how a pro-free-trade consensus can be re-established. Zoellick was on a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace webinar about the future of the global trading system with European Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan June 30. He said those who support free trade have always had a fight, because politics often align with protecting domestic producers from import competition.
The U.S. said that it has received no details on changes to subsidized loans for Airbus from France and Spain, so “no one can take seriously” that the changes addressed the entirety of the World Trade Organization decision that the subsidies distorted the market. The U.S. made the comments at a Dispute Settlement Committee in Geneva July 29, a Geneva trade official said. The U.S. representative also said the European Union didn't address the other six measures the WTO identified as distorting. The EU had said last week that the changes resolved the case, so the 15% tariffs on Airbus planes and 25% tariffs on other EU exports should be removed immediately (see 2007240057).
More than 150 House members, across the ideological spectrum and both parties, sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, urging him to remove 25% duties on all European beverages and food, but to not lower the total value of duties as he adjusts the target. In the current Airbus retaliation tariff list, aircraft is the first by value, at 39%; whiskeys and liqueurs second, at 21%, and wine third, at 17%.
Experts disagreed on the utility of the Trump administration approach to World Trade Organization reform, during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the topic, and senators on the left and right suggested that the negotiated trade rules disadvantage Americans.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden told the United Steelworkers trade union that a core part of his trade strategy “will be to enlist our international allies to collectively tackle unfair practices by China in order to ensure American steelworkers have good, plentiful union jobs. Trump has humiliated and infuriated our allies.”
As the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative weighs whether to remove any items from the Airbus retaliatory tariff list and replace them with other goods, or to hike tariffs on any goods now being taxed at an additional 25%, most trade groups are asking him to limit tariffs to aerospace, and spare what they import. The decision is due by Aug. 12.
At the first of two Senate Finance Committee hearings on securing the medical supply chain, senators learned that Homeland Security Investigations has opened 570 cases, and, cooperating with CBP, has stopped “900 shipments of mislabeled, fraudulent, or unauthorized COVID-19 test kits, treatment kits, homeopathic remedies, purported anti-viral products, and” personal protective equipment.
Thousands of people who either work in the wine industry or who enjoy drinking imported wines wrote to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative between June 26 and July 26. In all, USTR received close to 30,000 comments on what to do about tariffs on European goods. USTR is considering changing the mix of products, either by putting products on the list that were spared last time, or by adding new products not considered last year. It's also considering increasing the 15% and 25% tariffs on EU goods (see 2006240017).