U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai told Vietnam;s Trade Minister Nguyen Hong Dien that she wants to intensify bilateral economic ties through the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). The two said they would work on labor reforms, the environment, digital trade, agriculture and intellectual property. The two also talked about progress in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, according to a readout of the meeting.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is amending two exclusions from Section 301 tariffs to correct the description of one and conform the tariff number to recent tariff schedule changes of the other, it said in a notice. The affected exclusions are found at U.S. Notes 20(ttt)(iv)(42) and 20(ttt)(iii)(36) to subchapter III of Chapter 99. Both exclusions were recently extended through September 2023 (see 2212160052).
Japan brought up issues it has around the Inflation Reduction Act, while the U.S. asked Japan to increase its use of ethanol and have better regulatory transparency for "certain products and services," according to a readout of a trade discussion between the two countries released Feb. 3 by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The U.S. requested a second dispute panel over Canada's dairy tariff-rate-quota measures, and under USMCA, that panel will automatically be formed. The U.S. says Canada's revisions to its TRQs after it lost a case "impose new conditions effectively prohibiting retailers, food service operators, and other types of importers from utilizing TRQ allocations. Through these measures, Canada undermines the market access it agreed to provide in the USMCA."
After getting public pressure from House Democrats on labor practices at Manufacturas VU, a Michigan-headquartered supplier of interior automotive trims, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has opened a second rapid response request with Mexico about what's happening at the plant in Piedras Negras.
In a joint statement after the second annual deputies' meeting for the NAFTA successor, U.S., Mexican and Canadian officials said they talked about the concrete steps needed to ensure that goods made with forced labor cannot be imported into Mexico, Canada or the U.S.
Two U.S. readouts of the meetings between deputies from the three USMCA countries focused on a multitude of irritants and concerns the U.S. has with Canada and Mexico but didn't mention talks on how to resolve the U.S. violation of USMCA in its interpretation of the auto rules of origin (see 2301110058). Mexico and Canada did not issue their own readouts.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she and U.K. Secretary of State for International Trade Kemi Badenoch talked about how to strengthen the U.S.-U.K. trade relationship, how to reform the World Trade Organization, and how to confront "the challenges posed by non-market economies."
The U.S. readout of the first round of negotiations for the 21st Century Trade Initiative with Taiwan said the two sides reached consensus in a number of areas, and will continue to negotiate on trade facilitation, good regulatory practices, domestic regulation of services and approaches to boost small companies and fight corruption.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal did not announce any breakthroughs after their Jan. 11 meeting, but their joint statement pointed to some trade irritants that might be resolved in the future.