London-headquartered Business & Human Rights Resource Centre says only four of 10 global perfumers so far have responded to its queries about whether the companies used jasmine sourced from the Al-Gharbia region in Egypt in making their fragrances. The jasmine was allegedly produced using child labor, according to a May 2024 BBC documentary.

The Canadian press noted that Canada is working to convince officials that might serve in a future Trump administration to spare Canadian goods from a global 10% tariff, but former U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer, who recently traveled to Canada, has said Canada won't necessarily be exempted.

The Canadian Industrial Relations Board could reach a decision by Aug. 9 on what types of rail service should continue at Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) in the event of a union-led work stoppage, USDA said in a July 18 report. The agency said CIRB may intervene “to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public.” Union members with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, the union representing over 9,000 workers at CN and CPKC, had said in early May that members had voted to strike at both railways over a labor agreement impasse (see 2405060029).

Although some industries may initially have an easier time complying with the EU’s new anti-deforestation rules when they take effect at the start of next year, others may face a learning curve trying to ramp up their due diligence efforts, supply chain sustainability lawyers and advisers said this week. They also warned that EU companies that trade in large volumes of goods subject to the new law likely won’t be able to comply using only a manual due diligence process.

Trade ministers from the U.S., the EU, France, Italy, the U.K., Canada, Germany and Japan reiterated that they are committed to revising the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement, monitoring and negotiating functions, and to restoring a fully functioning dispute settlement system by year-end.

Brazil, the largest exporter of semifinished steel to Mexico after the U.S., won't be subject to the melted and poured restriction the two countries recently announced, the Mexican government disclosed last week. Aluminum cast in Brazil and steel melted and poured there won't be subject to Section 232 tariffs if they are processed in Mexico and exported to the U.S.

The government of Mexico has asked the U.S. to exempt Mexican bifacial solar panels from a global safeguard tariff. Economy Secretary Raquel Buenrostro noted that USMCA, or T-MEC, as they call it in Mexico, has rules in this regard. The July 12 press release didn't spell it out, but safeguards are only to be applied to Mexico and Canada if their imports are integral to the injury to U.S. producers; the U.S. eventually reversed the solar panel safeguard on all Canadian panels (see 2207070041).

A former top trade negotiator in Mexico, Juan Carlos Baker Pineda, said he doesn't think the review of the USMCA will be about fine-tuning or technical changes to the trade pact.

Canada this week launched a 30-day consultation period as it decides whether to impose additional duties or take other measures against Chinese electronic vehicle imports. The consultations, which began July 2 and will run through Aug. 1, “seek views on potential policy responses,” Canada said, including new tariffs on a range of battery, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell electric vehicles.

Almost three years after environmental groups asked the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to ask the tri-national Commission on Environmental Cooperation to establish a formal factual record of Mexico's failure to enforce its ban on gillnets in the Upper Gulf of California in Mexico (see 2108130052), that commission will begin such a fact-finding mission.