Imports at major U.S. retail container ports reached “unusually high numbers” just before the new 15 percent Section 301 tariffs on List 4A Chinese goods took effect Sept. 1, the National Retail Federation said Sept. 10. Imports “are expected to surge again” before the List 4B tariffs take effect Dec. 15, it said. “Retailers are still trying to minimize the impact of the trade war on consumers by bringing in as much merchandise as they can before each new round of tariffs takes effect and drives up prices." U.S. ports handled 1.96 million 20-foot-long cargo containers or their equivalents in July, the latest month for which actual numbers are available, NRF said. That was up 9.1 percent sequentially from June and represented a 2.9 percent increase from July 2018, it said. “Likely driven by the new tariffs” scheduled to take effect Dec. 15, NRF forecasts November imports will reach 1.97 million containers, the highest monthly total since shipments topped 2 million last October, it said.
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Former Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., will lead the American Italian Food Coalition, which is lobbying against tariffs on Italian pasta, coffee, and wafers and cookies. The coalition of 450 companies and trade associations, launched Sept. 10, argues that Italian foodstuffs should not be part of the retaliation for Airbus subsidies because Italy is not part of the Airbus consortium.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Sept. 3-6 in case they were missed.
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S6, released for sale on Sept. 6 and marked on the packaging as a product of Vietnam, typifies the growing volume of Vietnamese-sourced tablets and laptops imported to the U.S. under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8471.30.01. Though the overwhelming majority of those goods continue to originate from China, Vietnam is emerging as a more important country of origin, according to Census Bureau trade data accessed through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool.
The fourth list of Section 301 tariffs that was split into two subgroups, 4A and 4B, includes many very similar items that will require some specificity for differentiating between them, the Atlanta International Forwarders and Brokers Association said in a blog post. Fifteen percent tariffs on the 4A group of products took effect on Sept. 1, while the 15 percent tariffs on the 4B items start on Dec. 15. The differing effective dates are hoped to reduce the holiday season impacts (see 1908130033).
The U.S. trade representative and India's Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal have been talking on the phone, with the goal of trading a return to the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program for better agricultural access, according to two sources following the trade talks. The original industry complaints about market access filed with USTR, requesting that India be expelled from GSP privileges were from the medical device industry and from the dairy industry. A lawyer following the trade talks said that "there's talk -- and this is still a very contentious issue" -- that the pricing controls on medical devices, such as stents, would be changed in India.
One-third of Fortune 500 top executives discussed the impact of tariffs on their firms during earning calls this summer, according to analysis conducted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Manufacturing and industrial firms were most likely to talk tariffs, with 64 percent mentioning them; about 58 percent of retailers talked about tariffs' effects, and 43 percent of tech firms talked tariffs.
Crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells manufactured in Taiwan and finished in India are considered to be of Taiwan origin and are subject to the Section 201 safeguard measures on solar cells, CBP said in a May 24 ruling. At the time of the ruling (H301813), had the cells been of Indian origin, they would not have been subject to the Section 201 tariffs. As of June 5, though, India is no longer exempt from the safeguards because it was removed from eligibility as a Generalized System of Preferences beneficiary country (see 1906050043). The ruling was in response to an internal advice request through the Industrial and Manufacturing Materials Center of Excellence and Expertise.
Walmart Chief Merchandising Officer Steve Bratspies was “really proud” how his team mitigated the cost impact of the Lists 1, 2 and 3 Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods, he told a Barclays investor conference Sept. 4. List 4, which covers virtually all China-sourced goods not previously tariffed, “makes it tougher” to manage, Bratspies said. “There's no doubt about that.” With the previous three tariff rounds, “there were a few prices” that Walmart did have to raise, “but we didn't see any change in our unit projection of where we thought it would be, so that was absorbed,” he said. “We were very focused and targeted on how we did it. We didn't let any of our price gaps slip, and we maintained price leadership.” Though List 4 “gets tougher,” Walmart plans “the same approach that we took to List 3, which is we literally go through item by item,” Bratspies said. “That's what our buyers do.” There's “a whole bunch of different levers that a buyer can pull to understand how to manage that,” he said. The goal is to “offset as much as we possibly can either through negotiation or managing mix,” he said. Even if Walmart needs to raise prices as a “last resort” to maintain margins where they need to be, “we're going to run the Walmart model, which is we want to lead on price,” he said. Walmart last month slightly scaled back full-year expectations on consolidated net sales growth, factoring in the impact of the List 4 tariffs when they were still at 10 percent (see 1908150049).
Reuters interviewed the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, who said the U.S. hoped to hear from a World Trade Organization arbitrator in the next week or two about the authorized level of balancing tariffs in response to EU launch aid for Airbus planes. Ambassador Gordon Sondland told Reuters informal conversations with the EU about settling the Airbus-Boeing dispute before imposing tariffs had "really gone nowhere," but he left open the possibility of an eventual settlement. The U.S. argues the damage done by illegal EU subsidies adds up to $11 billion (see 1904090057), and it has prepared a list of products worth more than twice that much (see 1907020010).