An annual survey of U.S. firms with operations in China that are members of the U.S.-China Business Council found that about 80% of firms said that U.S.-China tensions affected their businesses. Of that group, about half said it caused lost sales in China; about a quarter said they lost sales due to Chinese retaliatory tariffs.
Uber Freight will acquire Transplace for about $2.25 billion, the companies said July 22. “Completion of this transaction will enable Uber Freight to serve substantially more customers at all levels of the freight industry and will expand its presence into Mexico and through new capabilities in intermodal and customs brokerage,” Uber said. Uber's purchase of Transplace from private equity firm TPG Capital includes “$750 million in common stock of Uber Freight’s parent company, Uber Technologies” and the rest in cash, it said. The deal shows the ride-hailing company is “leaning into Freight” after divesting noncore businesses, John Blackledge, an analyst at Cowen, wrote to investors July 23.
The American Apparel and Footwear Association asked the Biden administration to bring businesses, shippers and port authorities to the table to find short-term solutions to the shipping crisis.
A PricewaterhouseCoopers trade and tax expert told an audience at the U.S. Fashion Industry Association Virtual Washington Trade Symposium that while the prospect of trade liberalization in the next few years is low, he does not think that threatened tariffs on apparel and other goods from European countries, Turkey and India will be levied in November, in retaliation for digital services taxes. Scott McCandless, who spoke July 14 at the virtual conference, said that although it will be "a complicated dance both internationally and domestically" to arrive at an agreement on the intertwined issues of minimum corporate taxes and digital services taxes, he thinks it's more likely than not that Congress will pass a tax bill this fall that would give countries the right to levy taxes on multinationals that do business in their countries. If that happens, he said, "The DSTs likely go away, and the proposed tariffs on countries that have DSTs will go away as well."
Imports at the largest U.S. retail container ports are continuing to track double-digit year-over-year growth “as strong consumer demand keeps up its momentum,” the National Retail Federation reported July 8. NRF estimates U.S. ports handled 2.33 million 20-foot-long containers in May, up 8.6% sequentially from April and up 52.2% from May 2020, it said. It was the highest amount of imported containers during a single month since NRF began tracking imports in 2002, topping the previous record of 2.27 million set this March. “The year-over-year growth we saw this spring was off the charts because the comparisons were against a time when most stores were shut down due to the [COVID-19] pandemic,” said Jonathan Gold, NRF vice president-supply chain and customs policy. “We’re continuing to see strong growth even as we enter a point when stores had begun to reopen last year. That’s a sign of the tremendous demand from consumers. The challenge for retailers and supply chains is keeping shelves stocked as port congestion and other supply chain disruptions continue to impact the industry and the economy more broadly.”
Americans for Free Trade is urging the House to pass legislation that mirrors the Senate Trade Act of 2021, especially the language that asks the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to reinstate the Section 301 exclusion process. CBP has collected more than $92 billion in tariffs on Chinese products since the trade war began, the business coalition “united against tariffs” said in a June 30 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
The Coalition of American Metal Manufacturers and Users said the U.S. negotiators aiming to end Section 232 tariffs by addressing steel overcapacity should listen to U.S. industrial users of the metals.
April imports to the U.S. of laptops, tablets and smartphones were flat or marginally lower compared with March, but double digits higher than in April 2020, the first full month of COVID-19 lockdowns, according to Census data accessed June 9 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool.
Metal-using and other trade associations, including the U.S. Fashion Industry Association, the American Apparel and Footwear Association and the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, sent a letter June 9 to President Joe Biden asking him to expedite discussions with the European Union to address global steel and aluminum overcapacity so the Section 232 tariffs can be lifted as soon as possible. The 33 trade groups wrote, "These tariffs and quotas continue to hurt small, family-owned businesses and the communities in which they built their companies, while fracturing relations with overseas trading partners and spurring a frenzy of retaliatory trade measures against both related and unrelated industries."
AIT Worldwide Logistics acquired Multimodal International, an Illinois-based U.S. customs broker, the companies said in a June 3 news release. Multimodal is "known for their deep industrial vertical knowledge, particularly in the automotive and chemical markets -- two sectors where AIT is strategically expanding," AIT Chief Information Officer Ray Fennelly said. "Bringing these experts into the AIT customs brokerage team adds immediate value for our customers in those industries, and many others.” Terms of the deal weren't released.