The EU Parliament is debating a proposal to lower its own tariffs, operating as though the U.S. is upholding its end of the U.S.-EU agreement, despite apparent U.S. failure to enact promised tariff reductions on EU goods. On Sept 1, the EU Parliament held an extraordinary meeting of the Committee on International Trade to discuss the legislation and the deal as a whole.
The U.S. apparently failed to implement promised tariff reductions on European Union goods in time for a Sept. 1 deadline outlined in an EU-U.S. joint statement issued Aug. 21.
President Donald Trump claimed that India offered to "cut their Tariffs to nothing," as India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, stood firm against U.S. tariff pressure and promised deeper trade ties with Russia.
DOJ launched a cross-agency "Trade Fraud Task Force" on Aug. 29 to "bring robust enforcement against importers and other parties who seek to defraud the United States," the agency announced. The task force will bring together attorneys from the agency's civil and criminal divisions, along with officials at CBP, to target tariff evasion and "smugglers who seek to import prohibited goods into the American economy."
CBP began developing a system to automate duty and fee calculations for global mail entries in May, but the target deployment date for the functionality is still to be determined, according to the agency's ACE Development and Deployment Schedule for August.
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President Donald Trump said that the administration will petition the Supreme Court on Sept. 3 to make an "expedited ruling" on the legality of tariffs he imposed on every country through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Australian small businesses were given too little time to comply with the U.S. decision to end the de minimis exemption for low-value imports (see 2508280062), said Don Farrell, Australia’s trade minister. Farrell said he raised Australia’s "disappointment" earlier in the week with U.S. Trade Representative General Counsel Jennifer Thornton, adding that the move is mostly hurting “mum and dad operations that have had a successful product going into” the U.S.
Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich., is asking the House Ways and Means chairman to direct the International Trade Commission to conduct a fact-finding investigation on the economic impacts of Peruvian blueberry exports on American blueberry growers.
Five House Democrats, including Rep. Gregory Meeks, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution to terminate the emergency that allowed President Donald Trump to hike tariffs on some Brazilian goods from 10% plus most-favored nation tariffs to 50% plus MFN.