The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has warmly endorsed Katherine Tai to be U.S. trade representative. In a letter sent Feb. 23, Executive Vice President Myron Brilliant said her experience at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and as chief trade counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee, is invaluable. “She combines policy acumen, negotiating experience, and political savvy,” he wrote. “While one important aspect of USTR’s mission is to address unfair trading practices, the previous Administration’s dramatic expansion in the application of tariffs contributed directly to a manufacturing and agriculture recession well in advance of the [COVID-19] pandemic, and this experience illustrates the perils of an excessive reliance on tariffs. The next USTR must avoid the use of tariffs as a blunt instrument, and must avoid inaction on trade agreements as well,” he said, adding that Tai understands that.

U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt told Yahoo Finance reporters that if the Section 232 tariffs were removed, his industry could suffer. The tariffs “were necessary,” he said. “The steel that would come from China -- the illegal steel that would come from China -- would find its way into Europe and then into the U.S.,” he said Feb. 19. If the tariffs were lifted, he said, steel that purportedly came from Europe could actually be from Asia. “I think it's too soon to take off the 232 [tariffs]. We need to make sure we can take care of the United States again,” he said. When the U.S. lifted Section 232 tariffs on Canada and Mexico, those countries agreed to anti-circumvention measures.

The Coalition for GSP, which argues for renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, recently published an estimate that importers saved $879 million utilizing the GSP program in 2020. That covered $17 billion in imports. The group said that imports and savings were down from 2019 due to participating country terminations and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The semiconductor, chemicals, medical devices and aviation industries could be especially hurt by decoupling, according to a new U.S. Chamber of Commerce report attempting to quantify the costs of stopping or slowing sales to China, and in the case of chemicals, high tariffs on Chinese inputs used by U.S. chemical plants. Some of the actions modeled in the report have already happened, such as 25% tariffs on chemicals from China, and China's retaliatory tariffs on chemical exports. But while semiconductor exports to ZTE, Huawei and Fujian Jinhua have been restricted, there has not been a complete ban on the export of chips to China, which is what the report modeled.

The National Association of Beverage Importers praised the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for not increasing the tariffs on wine and liquor, but in a Feb. 11 news release it also said the new administration should have rolled some tariffs back, at least the ones added in January. NABI called it a “missed opportunity to present a conciliatory signal, particularly in response to the European Commission’s offer of a six-month mutual suspension of the Airbus and Boeing tariffs.” It said 25% tariffs on imported wine and liquor is causing job losses and furloughs at warehouses and ports, as well as among delivery transportation drivers; logistics and marketing staff; and servers and other wait staff, bartenders and other restaurant workers. “The only link between aircraft and beverage alcohol is the fact you can purchase a drink on your flight,” NABI President Robert Tobiassen said.

Board members and people who provide services to foreign-trade zones talked about what the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones should work on now that it lost the battle on USMCA rules of origin treatment for goods produced in those zones. “Now that provision’s back in the act, it’s going to be a real challenge,” said Melissa Irmen, chair of the NAFTZ board. The group wants to make sure a U.S.-United Kingdom free trade agreement doesn't prohibit goods made in FTZs from qualifying for rules of origin, as USMCA does. “They are concerned that the USMCA approach could be a precedent.”

American Association of Exporters and Importers CEO Marianne Rowden believes automation is going to replace a lot of tariff classification work over the coming years. “Will human beings be doing tariff classification in the next three to five years? I don't think so -- I think it’s all going to be done by machine,” Rowden told a National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones online conference Feb. 9. She also predicted that the moratorium on customs duties on digital transactions, such as downloads of games or movies, will end in the medium term. “Every two years there is a vote at the World Trade Organization on the moratorium on customs duties on digital transmissions,” she said. “I think we’re going to lose that vote probably within the next five to six years because governments, particularly developing countries, are so desperate for revenue.”

DSV is offering a new customs classification service to “provide a structured, straightforward process which can be used early in the company’s import and export planning activity,” DSV's Robert Wisniewski, customs manager, International Shared Service Center, said in a news release. The “service is divided into seven steps, where customs information about the goods is analysed, classified and validated by DSV customs classification experts on behalf of the customer,” the company said. “When all customs documents are ready to be handed over to the relevant authorities, DSV shares this with the customer.” Wisniewski said the classification team “consists of subject matter experts who have an in-depth understanding of global merchandise as well as the legal aspects of customs tariffs.”

U.S. importers in 2020 sourced record quantities of laptops, tablets and TVs to meet historically high demand for connectivity and home entertainment gear during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, according to Census Bureau data accessed Feb. 7 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. The 125.68 million laptops and tablets shipped here in 2020 under tariff schedule subheading 8471.30.01 were up 22.6% from 2019 and the most in any year since Census began reporting that HTS category in 2007. Fourth-quarter shipments of 43.44 million laptops were the highest quarterly volume recorded, rising 18.4% sequentially from Q3 and 39.5% year over year.

The trade war initiated by the U.S. has forced Ford Motor to reevaluate the strategy of sourcing parts that are easily shipped from countries with the cheapest prices, said Hau Thai-Tang, chief operations officer for the company, during a Feb. 3 session of The Economist's World Trade Symposium.