Coping with the U.S.-China trade war “continues to be a moving target,” said Mark Mondello, CEO of manufacturer Jabil, on a Sept. 24 earnings call. “You wake up one day, there’s a tweet, you wake up 48 hours later, something else is going on,” Mondello said. “It’s a very complicated issue in terms of what’s going to be, how bad will it get.” There’s some “conversation” in supply chains that the trade war is “just going to be kind of a little bit of a tit for tat, and then there’s people that have the opinion that it could extrapolate to something much bigger,” he said. If U.S. tensions with China escalate "it absolutely is going to affect our business, as it will everybody’s,” he said. Mondello personally and in dealing with customers tries “not to get too obsessive about how bad things can get,” he said. “We do planning scenarios internally on what we would do, but assuming this thing doesn’t blow up in a big way, I think Jabil’s really well-positioned.”

Micron Technology expects its gross margins to take a “near-term” hit “to the tune of 50 to 100 basis points” from the 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports that take effect Sept. 24 and are due to rise to 25 percent Jan. 1 (see 1809170051 and 1809180020), Chief Financial Officer Dave Zinsner said on a Sept. 20 earnings call. “We are working to gradually mitigate most of the impact from these tariffs over the next three to four quarters,” Zinsner said. “Clearly, tariffs are impacting us,” and reducing Micron’s exposure to the damage “obviously takes some time,” he said. “We have to do some things operationally to get ourselves in a place where it isn’t as impactful, and so, it’ll be a quarter or two probably before we start to see some benefit from the improvement there.” Micron argued unsuccessfully for removal from the Trump administration’s “retaliation list” the tariffs on 8473.30.11 printed circuit assemblies imported to the U.S., which include the “memory modules” it makes in Xi’an, China.

With the “great news” that Element Electronics persuaded the Trump administration to remove liquid crystal display (LCD) panels and motherboards under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule 9013.80.90 and 8529.90.13 headings from the third tranche of Section 301 tariffs set to take effect Sept. 24 (see 1809170051), Element’s Winnsboro, South Carolina, LCD TV assembly factory “will remain open!,” it emailed retail customers Walmart and Target. “Thanks again for supporting Element -- the only major television brand assembling TVs in America.” Element had said in public hearings that it would be forced to shutter the factory and terminate the remaining 126 jobs there if tariffs on the components it sources from China went through because the prohibitively higher costs would have forced the company to import finished TVs from China rather than assemble them in Winnsboro.

DHL Global Forwarding now offers a new platform called Customs Connection for U.S. customs brokerage customers, the company said in a news release. "Customs Connection replaces the previous DHL platform and acts as a one stop-shop for all customs processes backed by a sophisticated technological architecture," it said. Among new features are a "dashboard where customers can view and download their current and historical information and data, filter through commodities/origin and destination categories, generate reports, obtain invoice information and view a breakdown of their total brokerage costs," it said.

The two rounds of Section 301 tariffs, implemented July 6 and Aug. 23, account for less than 10 percent of the shipment volume FedEx does in the “China-U.S. lane bidirectionally,” and that volume represents about 2 percent of total revenue for the “whole enterprise,” said Raj Subramaniam, FedEx chief marketing and communications officer, on a Sept. 17 earnings call. New tariffs on the $200 billion worth of imports would raise the impact to a quarter of the commerce FedEx does between China and the U.S., he said. “The uncertainty around the issue and the potential for additional tariffs is affecting the market and we're beginning to see some of the economic activity in China starting to moderate as a result of that,” Subramaniam said about an hour before President Donald Trump announced the third tranche of tariffs would take effect Sept. 24. FedEx hasn’t yet seen “any significant shifts in the customer supply chain” as a result of the tariffs, he said. “However, if the situation continues for any amount of time, we do expect customers to diversify their supply chains and perhaps some of the trade patterns might change.” Subramaniam is confident that “the scale and flexibility of FedEx will enable us to deliver strong results in enterprise despite any uncertainty on trades and tariffs,” he said.

The Washington Tax and Public Policy Group opened a new division to focus on trade issues, the lobbying firm said in a news release. The new division, WTG Global, is led by Brian Diffell, who joined the firm in 2013 after working as a congressional staffer. Among issues WTG Global will work on are Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, Section 301 tariffs and NAFTA, it said.

The Trump administration’s proposed Section 301 tariffs on a third tranche of Chinese goods worth about $200 billion in customs value “would target many key components that make cloud computing possible,” the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation reported on Sept. 4. The administration “in theory” initiated the tariffs to “counteract unfair Chinese trade practices and improve U.S. competitiveness,” ITIF said. “But their practical effect would be to advantage foreign technology competitors, thereby threatening U.S. leadership in both the adoption and provision of cloud computing, and stunting U.S. economic growth,” it said. Though “contesting Chinese innovation mercantilism” is a “laudable and necessary mission,” the administration needs to “seek alternative policy measures that do not raise the cost of key productivity -- and innovation-enhancing capital goods and services such as information technology and cloud computing,” it said. ITIF fears that tariffs would raise prices for businesses and consumers and force cloud-service providers to cut costs through job reductions or curtail spending on new data centers or the research and development “needed to stay ahead of international competitors,” it said. It also worries that cloud providers “may be forced to invest elsewhere to remain competitive,” it said. Tariffs also “threaten to disrupt finely crafted global supply chains for the manufacture of information-technology products,” it said. Those supply chains can’t “easily be reinvented in the short term without significant detriment to, and dislocation of, U.S. industry,” it said.

Though the Trump administration “so far” hasn’t targeted “fashion watches” for Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, “that could be a potential for the future,” Movado Group CEO Efraim Grinberg said on an Aug. 29 earnings call. “We are looking at different ways to hope to be able to mitigate that, if that were to occur,” he said. “In the short-to-medium term, if they were to occur, that would be a threat to the overall margins.”

An extension of brand name biologic data protections to 10 years "will harm patients who seek more affordable medicines," the Association for Accessible Medicines, the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association, and the Mexican Association of Generic Medicines said in a joint statement. "The U.S., Mexico and Canada should reject these provisions, which would benefit brand name drug companies to the detriment of public health and the affordability of medical care," the groups said. The extended protections are part of the deal's intellectual property chapter, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a fact sheet.

The increase to the de minimis value threshold in Mexico as part of the U.S.-Mexico trade deal (see 1808270032) is good news for small companies, eBay said in a news release. "This allows low-value shipments to cross borders with minimum effort, allowing for stronger global trade" and "the eBay Government Relations team has long advocated that countries raise their de minimis thresholds to promote trade," it said. The trade deal would double Mexico's de minimis to $100, though it is still well below the U.S. de minimis of $800. "This decision is a positive step forward for promoting trade and economic opportunities for small businesses," eBay said.