China-U.S. relations are “mired in unprecedented difficulties,” and the “fundamental cause is the utterly wrong China policies taken by the Trump administration,” said a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Friday. “It is never too late to do the right thing,” said the spokesperson. "We hope the U.S. will choose to follow the trend of the times” and work with China in the “spirit of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,” he said. The White House didn’t respond to questions.

Intel invested $475 million in its Vietnamese subsidiary, in addition to the $1 billion it spent more than a decade ago to build a chip assembly and test manufacturing facility in Ho Chi Minh City, it blogged Tuesday. Intel Products Vietnam shipped more than 2 billion units of components to customers globally through the end of 2020, it said. It’s the largest U.S. tech investment in Vietnam, it said. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative under the Trump administration found Vietnam’s allegedly improper devaluation of the dong against the dollar actionable under the Trade Act Section 301, leaving it to the next USTR to decide whether to impose tariffs on Hanoi (see 2101150052).

Telecom equipment from Huawei and other “untrusted" vendors is “a threat to the security of the U.S. and our allies,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told a news conference Wednesday. During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday, commerce secretary nominee Gina Raimondo demurred from agreeing to maintain export restrictions against Huawei and other Chinese companies imposed during President Donald Trump’s administration (see 2101260063). Senate Commerce set a Feb. 3 vote on Raimondo (see 2101270062 and our calendar). Psaki likewise stopped short of committing to keep restrictions on Huawei and other Chinese vendors. “We will ensure that the American telecommunications networks do not use equipment from untrusted vendors, and we will work with allies to secure their telecommunications networks and make investments to expand production of telecommunications equipment by trusted U.S. and allied companies,” she said.

Robert Lighthizer’s departure as U.S. trade representative with the passing of the Trump administration spawned the first Section 301 complaint (in Pacer) among many inundating the U.S. Court of International Trade to bring suit against his former agency instead of Lighthizer himself. Wacom Technology, an importer of digital pen displays for creative artists, alleged like thousands of others that USTR overstepped its authority when it imposed the Lists 3 and 4A tariffs on Chinese imports and seeks to have the tariffs vacated and the money refunded. “Now-former Ambassador Lighthizer made numerous decisions regarding List 3 and List 4,” said Wacom Monday. “At the time of filing this complaint,” Lighthizer “no longer held the position” of USTR, and hasn’t been replaced, it said. “The actions at issue in this complaint were and are being performed in the official capacity” of Lighthizer’s former agency, it said.

Trade groups representing intellectual property rightsholders told the Patent and Trademark Office that secondary trademark infringement liability hasn't been effective in getting e-commerce platforms to police themselves. Some want Congress to define the parameters of this doctrine by passing a law. Comments were due Monday. The Computer and Communications Industry Association said shifting responsibility to platforms would reduce voluntary cooperation and wouldn't decrease the number of counterfeits for sale. The American Apparel and Footwear Association said the test of platform liability, that a company should “know or have reason to know” of trademark infringement, seems straightforward, but courts have applied it differently. “The court in Tiffany v. eBay believed that market-based forces would provide a strong incentive for platforms to combat counterfeits. Empirically, it is irrefutable that this assumption is false," said AAFA. The Shop Safe Act (HR-6058) from the last session of Congress would have created a new form of secondary liability for counterfeits, and AAFA said it needs a clearer definition and its coverage should be expanded. The National Association of Manufacturers said legislation is needed to set “judicial review standards that encourage courts to develop critical fact-specific case law.” NAM said some courts say Communications Decency Act Section 230 protections for platforms give them a safe harbor to host sellers of bogus goods, and that wasn't what Congress intended. Amazon noted that in 2019 it invested more than a half-billion dollars to fight counterfeits and other fraud and abuse on its site. “Amazon’s primary focus is on preventative, technology-driven tools built on machine learning and data science to proactively scan the more than 5 billion changes submitted to Amazon’s worldwide catalog" daily, it commented. “For every one of the self-service takedowns by brands, Amazon’s automated protections proactively stop more than 100 listings.” It said it launched a Counterfeit Crimes Unit in June 2020: "Amazon needs the help of rights holders, the company said, and information sharing, from both [Customs and Border Protection] on seizures and from other platforms, would help the company stop counterfeiters."

China hopes the Biden administration learns "from the Trump administration's lessons” and restores China-U.S. relations to “the right track of sound and stable development,” said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Tuesday. The U.S. under President Donald Trump “went in a very wrong direction” toward China, he said. President Joe Biden “will take a multilateral approach to engaging with China, and that includes evaluating the tariffs currently in place,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday. America is in “a serious competition with China,” she said. “China is engaged in conduct that hurts American workers, blunts our technological edge and threatens our alliances and our influence in international organizations.”

Philips is “on track” to complete the “divestment” of its domestic appliances business in the third quarter, said CEO Frans van Houten on a Q4 investor call Monday. Domestic appliances are a strong business that “returned to robust growth with increasing margins” in 2020's second half, he said. “We continue to see good interest for the asset and remain open to different divestment options to deliver the best value for the company.” He identified no possible suitors. The “gross impact” to the domestic appliances business from the Section 301 tariffs on China was “substantial,” said van Houten. “We have mitigated that down to a level of around 25 million euros” by diversifying the supply chain, he said. If tariffs are “rolled back” under the Biden administration, that would be a “net positive for us," but “I don't see that happening anytime soon,” he said.

Q4 global supply chain activity exceeded that of the pre-pandemic 2019 quarter by 14%, suggesting a “significant recovery” after nearly a year of “massive supply chain instability and disruptions,” reported Tradeshift Monday. The trade analytics firm studied invoicing and ordering records, finding “a particularly strong end to the year” in most world regions, it said. The number of U.S. transactions between buyers and suppliers jumped 29% in Q4 from a year earlier, double the rate of global growth in the quarter, it said. Trade activity in Western economies “has only recently shown signs of returning to growth,” but businesses in China “have been operating at near-normal capacity” since April, it said. Q4 supply chain activity in retail jumped 34%, outperforming other sectors, it said. Retail trade activity declined by as much as 36% in Q2 during peak COVID-19 lockdowns. Supply chain activity in the tech sector increased 16% in Q4.

The Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry defended sanctions against Mike Pompeo and other former Trump administration officials (see 2101200027) for the second straight day. Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on Thursday called the sanctions “a brazen and baseless attempt to silence and intimidate” officials who had exposed Chinese abuses. A ministry spokesperson responded Friday that “McCaul's rhetoric exposes the hegemonic mentality of some U.S. politicians who believe the United States can blatantly suppress others.” The ministry estimates the Trump administration “took more than 3,900 distinct sanctions actions in total, or three per day,” against China, said the spokesperson. The sanctions bar Pompeo, the other officials and their immediate families from visiting China, Hong Kong and Macao. Companies and institutions affiliated with them are restricted from doing business with China.

The Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry was unfazed Thursday by White House criticism of China’s sanctions against 28 former Trump administration officials, including ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, prohibiting them and their immediate families from visiting China, Hong Kong and Macao, and restricting companies they work for from doing business with the Chinese (see 2101200027). A National Security Council spokesperson called the sanctions “unproductive and cynical,” but a ministry spokesperson defended them as “a legitimate and necessary response.” China has warned “multiple times that these anti-China politicians will pay for their crazy acts,” she said. “We hope the new U.S. administration will view China and China-U.S. relations in an objective and rational manner” and help bring those relations “back onto the track of sound and stable development,” she said.