The Federal Communications Commission is exploring whether untrusted vendors should be excluded from the FCC equipment authorization program, acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said April 26 at a virtual workshop on supply chain security, held in conjunction with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “When it comes to network security, the threats are real, the stakes are high, and our defenses need to constantly evolve and improve,” Rosenworcel said. Just saying no isn’t a strategy, “so we’re moving fast,” she said.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has been cautioning its clients not to get their hopes up about a reversal of sections 232 and 301 tariffs with the new administration, and Scott McCandless, a principal in the firm's tax policy services group, also sought to manage expectations for trade policy action in Congress in 2021. McCandless, speaking to a webinar audience April 27, said that while forced labor is a hot issue right now, and CBP “is on a more active footing” on forced labor, he doesn't believe that legislation that would create a rebuttable presumption of forced labor in Xinjiang is going to pass this year. “I doubt that moves forward,” he said.
A former Trump political appointee said that he believes the concentration of solar panel making and inputs in China is a major concern for the U.S. as it looks to an energy transition, and suggested the campaign against blood diamonds could be a model for how to deal with human rights abuses alleged in the production of polysilicon in China's Xinjiang province. That campaign relied on traders' desire to avoid reputational risk, and self-policing among distributors. But Keith Krach, formerly State Department undersecretary for economic growth, energy and the environment from 2019 to the end of the Trump administration, also suggested that a forced labor ban could be a future action.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from April 12-16 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai's conversations with her counterparts from Italy and the Netherlands addressed global overcapacity in steel, according to summaries of the video calls released April 16. The administration has suggested that Section 232 tariffs on aluminum and steel cannot be removed until overcapacity has been addressed, even when the countries subject to those tariffs are not dumping steel or aluminum in their exports to the U.S.
CBP detained 371 shipments between Oct. 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021, due to the possible use of forced labor on the goods, the agency said in newly updated forced labor statistics. That marks an increase of 281 stopped shipments from the previous release of statistics, when CBP said it detained 90 shipments between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2020 (see 2101290050).
At a time when hurricane damage, violence and poverty are driving more Central Americans to the U.S., consultants, advocates and former diplomats say the Central America Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, needs changes to spur development in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Those Northern Triangle countries are the ones sending large numbers of asylum seekers to the U.S. in the last few years. Kellie Meiman Hock, a McLarty Associates managing partner who led the April 14 panel hosted by the Washington International Trade Association, noted that when CAFTA was ratified more than 15 years ago, the hope was that it would bring more economic development to Central America. But instead, trade from the region has been flat.
CBP's recent finding on Top Glove's use of forced labor in the production of disposable gloves (see 2103260028) “applies only to disposable gloves originating in Top Glove factories in Malaysia,” a CBP spokesperson said in an April 12 email. That confirms recently reported remarks from Top Glove Executive Chairman Tan Sri Lim Wee Chai. The company has 43 factories in Malaysia, five in Thailand, one in Vietnam and one in China, according to the report.
The White House announced it has selected Chris Magnus, the police chief of Tucson, Arizona, and former police chief of Fargo, North Dakota, and Richmond, California, to lead CBP. The April 12 announcement said, “In each of these cities Magnus developed a reputation as a progressive police leader who focused on relationship-building between the police and community, implementing evidence-based best practices, promoting reform, and insisting on police accountability.” It also said that because Tucson is close to the Mexican border, he has extensive experience in addressing immigration issues.”
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from March 29-April 2 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.