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.

U.S. industry representatives criticized China’s Aug. 23 decision to impose retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. and called for the two sides to quickly reach a trade deal. The latest Chinese tariffs could lock U.S. companies out of China for “many years,” said Doug Barry, spokesman for the U.S.-China Business Council. Barry said U.S. companies are worried that China is finding other suppliers as the trade war continues, and the latest measures may only speed up the process. “More worrisome is the signal to everyone, everywhere, that the trade conflict is getting worse, not better,” Barry said. “So let’s not invest and let’s not buy.”

The Department of Finance Canada is deploying changes to antidumping regulations “to ensure that an appropriate level of anti-dumping duties can be applied to goods that are dumped into Canada,” it said in an Aug. 23 news release. “This will provide greater flexibility to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to address situations where there may be distortions in the price of the goods in the country of export. It clarifies alternative methods to calculate the costs of production of the imported goods, in cases where the price of inputs is distorted because of purchases made between affiliated companies or because of a particular market situation.”

China’s Ministry of Commerce repeated claims that it will retaliate against higher U.S. tariffs, said it opposed new U.S. measures against Huawei and plans to make an announcement involving its so-called unreliable entity list “soon,” spokesman Gao Feng said at an Aug. 22 press conference, according to an unofficial translation of a transcript from the briefing.

CBP is close to bringing industry on board to "go operational" with electronic manifest for export, said Jim Swanson, director of CBP’s Cargo and Security Controls Division, during the Aug. 21 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting in Buffalo, New York. Swanson said he has multiple meetings in the coming weeks with companies about using electronic manifest. CBP has been testing it internally for a while, Swanson said.

Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security issued a guidance on Aug. 20 about the disclosure of technology or software subject to export controls “between and among members of standards setting or development groups or bodies.” BIS said it issued the guidance after receiving “a number of questions” about the temporary general license for Huawei and the Chinese company’s addition to the Entity List. The guidance tries to clarify which activities are prohibited among standards organizations when discussing Huawei and its Entity Listing.

CBP officials applauded the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee’s report on improving trade in the Northern Triangle but said the report’s recommendations won’t lead to change unless COAC receives more of a commitment from the U.S. government. “It must be consistent and sustainable,” Josephine Baiamonte, CBP’s executive director for the International Operations Division of the Office of International Affairs, said during an Aug. 21 COAC meeting in Buffalo, New York. “Those two things are the things that are missing right now.”

A lack of trade facilitation, infrastructure and widespread corruption are three of the main challenges stymieing trade in the Northern Triangle, which could be improved with U.S. help, the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee Rapid Response Subcommittee said in a report prepared for the Aug. 21 COAC meeting. The report, compiled from COAC’s Northern Triangle Working Group, issued several recommendations for improving trade, including specific adjustments Northern Triangle countries can make to their customs agencies, an enhanced foreign-trade zone in the area, training from U.S. customs officials and better trade enforcement.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Aug. 12-16 in case they were missed.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expects Canada's Parliament to continue progress on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in the fall following October elections, he said in recently posted written responses to House Ways and Means Committee members following a June 19 hearing (see 1906190062). "The Trudeau government has begun necessary steps to ratify the USMCA in its Parliament and has stated that it plans to move forward on implementation in tandem with the United States," he said. "The Canadian Parliament has adjourned for the summer and is not expected to return before federal elections are held on October 21, 2019. We anticipate that Canada will take up the legislation once a new government is seated later this fall, and we are confident that the Parliament will vote in favor of the Agreement."