International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories from July 27-31 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the technical fixes to USMCA need to be done, and he hopes a technical fixes bill can pass the Senate by unanimous consent. The bill would allow refunds of merchandise processing fees in post-entry reconciliation (see 2007070056) and may also change treatment of foreign-trade zones, a change that those zones say is not a technical fix at all, but a policy change (see 2007200021).
The International Trade Commission recently issued several revisions to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule to implement new and amended Section 301 exclusions and complete its July 1 implementation of USMCA. Most recently, in Revision 17, issued July 28, the ITC implemented a new round of exclusions from list 4 Section 301 tariffs under U.S. Note 20(fff) to subchapter III of Chapter 99, and new subheading 9903.88.53 (see 2007210026). The ITC also amended tariff numbers listed for some exclusions in U.S. Note 20(ddd).
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories from July 20-24 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
House Ways and Means Committee Democrats are asking Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer why the money provided for the Labor Department's Bureau of International Labor Affairs is not supporting worker organizing, as the implementing act suggested.
A recent revision to the tariff schedule changes treatment of goods returned after assembly from Canada or Mexico under subheading 9802.00.80, allowing products of the U.S. assembled in Canada or Mexico to enter duty free under USMCA.
Michael Nemelka, the nominee for deputy U.S. trade representative, said that the first case under USMCA could begin in the fall, if consultations with Canada or Mexico fail. Nemelka, who currently works as a special adviser to the USTR, said that they are reviewing complaints this month. After that, staff will consult with the congressional committees of jurisdiction about which complaints would make the best cases. Then a consultation process would begin.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories from July 13-17 in case they were missed.
House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Kevin Brady, R-Texas, one of the four players directing the shape of a USMCA technical corrections bill, said that the “language was a little different than the intent” when it came to the treatment of foreign-trade zones in USMCA's implementing bill. Brady and the leaders of the Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees see getting a technical corrections bill passed as “a high priority,” he said in a recent interview.
A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of 400 executives found that only two-thirds are familiar with USMCA, but of those who are, 88% said their firms have taken action to comply with the changes from NAFTA. For firms that said they were taking action in February, 54% were evaluating their supply chains; 38% hiring new workers and 26% moving manufacturing. It's not clear how the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 pandemic may have affected these plans.