U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that she's still evaluating how a free trade agreement with Great Britain "could support the Biden-Harris Administration’s broader Build Back Better agenda," in a readout of her first meeting, on Sept. 20, with the new top trade official for the United Kingdom, Anne-Marie Trevelyan. Tai said she does want to deepen bilateral trade ties with the U.K. The readout also said there needs to be a durable solution to implement the trade protocols between Northern Ireland, which is technically no longer in the European Union, and Ireland, so that peace in Northern Ireland is preserved. As part of Brexit, the U.K. agreed to allow Northern Ireland to stay in the Customs Union of the EU so that the soft border between Northern Ireland and Ireland could remain, but that means that part of the U.K. is essentially a foreign country for trade purposes, so the U.K. has tried to find wiggle room in the treatment of Northern Ireland goods.

Australia is expecting its exports to significantly benefit from Peru’s recent ratification of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the country said Sept. 20. Australia specifically said its farmers and businesses will gain new market access and export opportunities. “Peru is a fast-growing, dynamic economy offering Australian exporters a gateway to Latin America and the CPTPP will support trade with Peru growing beyond our existing bilateral agreement,” said Dan Tehan, Australia’s trade and investment minister.

A day after the White House's primary spokesperson said that if there's an opportunity to renegotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that's a discussion the U.S. could join, a former White House trade negotiator said the path to reentering the TPP is so steep that he doesn't think it's likely in the next few years.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai met with Korean Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo Sept. 13, and in a summary of that meeting, she said she emphasized the importance of advancing workers' rights through the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, as well as using KORUS to resolve bilateral issues.

In a strategic meeting called a high-level economic dialogue, Mexico and the U.S. talked about ways to facilitate the movement of goods at the border and ways to use Mexico in a North American-centric semiconductor supply chain, officials said after the Sept. 9 meeting. Mexico could become a place for packaging and testing chips, Mexico's Economy Secretary Tatiana Clouthier said at a press conference at the Mexican Embassy.

Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was asked at his Sept. 2 press conference if it would be better to reach an agreement among Canada, the U.S. and Mexico on the question of the interpretation of auto rules of origin. López Obrador said.that it would be better to reach agreement without having to convene a dispute settlement panel, and added, "I don't think it will go that far; an agreement is to be reached soon." The countries could also try mediation or conciliation instead of a panel if consultations are unsuccessful.

The U.S. is now facing formal complaints from both Mexico and Canada over how it's calculating regional value content in the auto rules of origin under USMCA. Canada formally joined Mexico's call for consultations, it announced Aug. 26. Canada says that, like Mexico, it does not agree "with the interpretation of the United States of the relationship between the core parts and vehicle regional value content calculations."

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, in a readout of an Aug. 25 call with Turkey's Trade Minister Mehmet Mus, said that she argued that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's discussions on international taxation are the best way to resolve the issues that led countries to want to impose digital services taxes. The USTR has said that 32 subheadings of Turkish imports could face tariffs if Turkey imposes a DST. The value of goods on the list imported in 2019 was $310 million.

The White House announced that Vietnam has decided to either eliminate or reduce its tariffs on corn, wheat and pork. It did not specify which goods will be imported with no tariffs or how much the tariffs would be reduced. U.S. agricultural producers suffered competitively because the U.S. chose not to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Vietnam is a member, and lowered tariffs for other TPP members.

More than 30 trade groups, led by the U.S.-China Business Council, are asking the Biden administration to retroactively restore product exclusions that expired last year, open a new exclusion application process "and continue negotiations with China to remove both nations’ counterproductive tariffs as soon as possible." In an Aug. 5 letter, the groups said China followed through on phase one promises to open to financial services providers and eliminate market access barriers for beef and some fruits and grains. They acknowledged that China is not on track to meet its purchase commitments, and said that China needs to be prodded to fully implement some other structural commitments, "particularly in the areas of biotechnology, patent linkage, services (including financial services), and protection of intellectual property rights."