After a complaint from Casa Obrera del Bajio, a Mexican labor organization in Guanajuato state, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is asking Mexico to review whether workers at the Grupo Yakazi factory there were denied rights to freedom of association because of irregularities during the workers' vote in March on whether to retain the union that had been representing them.

The U.S. and Mexico this week resolved a complaint involving workers' rights at the Draxton auto parts foundry in Irapuato, Guanajuato, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced July 31, marking the fifth time the countries agreed on a formal course of remediation under the USMCA's Rapid Response Labor Mechanism.

The interagency committee that manages rapid response labor complaints under the USMCA made one pro-business change to the petition and investigation guidelines, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce highlighted in a recent blog post.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative seeks a second round of comments in connection with its annual review of the eligibility of countries for benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (see 2305160050) following a hearing the agency held on July 24 (see 2307240037), it said in a notice. Post-hearing comments are due by Aug. 8.

A readout from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative after the latest round of talks between the trade representative and her EU counterpart on a steel and aluminum deal suggested she does not think the EU is thinking big enough. The U.S. and the EU are trying to agree on a system that would preference steel and aluminum made with a lower carbon footprint, and, at the same time, a system that would keep metals produced through non-market excess capacity out of their countries.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is amending two exclusions from Section 301 tariffs to conform the tariff numbers in the descriptions of the exclusions to recent tariff schedule changes, it said in a notice. The affected exclusions are found at U.S. Notes 20(ttt)(iii)(73) and 20(ttt)(iii)(74) to subchapter III of Chapter 99.

The fourth round of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) concluded in South Korea last week, and the Commerce Department and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said the countries' delegations "continued to make progress" toward the trade, clean economy and fair economy pillars, and advanced the legal review of the supply chain pillar.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced that USTR Katherine Tai will travel to Brussels July 20-21, on her way back from Kenya.

Canada and Mexico talked about the panel ruling on auto rules of origin -- a decision that went their way but that the U.S. has chosen not to implement -- and Canada brought up the issue with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai as well, according to readouts from Mexico and Canada about the bilateral meetings July 6 ahead of the official Free Trade Commission meeting in Cancun, Mexico.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Deputy USTR Jayme White headed to Cancun, Mexico, to meet with Mexican Economy Secretary Raquel Buenrostro and Canada's trade minister, Mary Ng, ahead of the official USMCA Free Trade Commission meeting on July 6.