A joint statement from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the president of Kazakhstan said that the Central Asian country wants to cooperate on trade facilitation, including harmonizing and digitizing customs procedures, and that both countries committed to "make concrete progress in the near term to include additional U.S. meat and poultry production facilities, streamline the issuance of digital export certificates, and work to facilitate increased shipments of U.S. agricultural equipment to Kazakhstan."
Trade talks between the U.S. and Argentina this week covered customs facilitation, lithium and copper, and agricultural concerns on both sides.
A summary of U.S. proposed text for a customs facilitation language in the Kenya-U.S. Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership says it is asking Kenya to publish all international trade information online, and to answer questions about trade without charging for the contact. It asks Kenya to maintain uniform procedures on advance rulings, and to provide appeals for customs administration issues. It asks Kenya to adopt a single window system for electronic forms and supporting documents, and to allow for immediate release of goods prior to a final determination of duties through customs bonds, and to accept electronic payment of duties.
The U.S. and Kenya committed to try to conclude the U.S.-Kenya Strategic Trade and Investment partnership by the end of the year, they said in a joint statement.
Hong Kong and Peru last week concluded talks on a free trade deal and hope to soon “finish the few remaining issues” before formally signing an agreement later this year, Hong Kong’s Commerce and Economic Development Bureau said in a May 17 news release. The deal is expected to cover trade in goods and services, including e-commerce and “other related areas,” said Algernon Yau, Hong Kong’s commerce and economic development secretary. The two sides completed the negotiations on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Ministerial meetings in Arequipa, Peru.
American, German and British environmental and trade politics experts agreed at an American-German Institute event on "Squaring the Transatlantic Circle" on climate policy that although it seems like Western Europe and the U.S. should be united on goals and interests, their economic competition and even pride stand in the way.
China and Switzerland held talks May 10 on upgrading the free trade agreement between the two countries, China's Ministry of Commerce said, according to an unofficial translation. Following the talks in Beijing, the parties agreed to "jointly implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries" and boost the start of talks to upgrade the FTA, the ministry said.
Former top officials in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative during the Trump and Biden administrations said there will be no return to a pre-Trumpian, pro-free trade philosophy, whether Joe Biden wins re-election this fall or Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025.
The EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council likely will continue if former President Donald Trump is reelected, European Commission officials said at a briefing April 3. The sixth TTC meeting takes place April 4-5 in Leuven, Belgium. It's the last of this political cycle, given U.S. and European elections later in the year. The EC doesn't expect too much disruption of its work, which includes deliverables on 6G, platforms, standardization, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, officials said.
The annual report on foreign trade barriers, which covers intellectual property, agricultural exports and e-commerce, as well as all other goods and services, highlighted non-tariff barriers to ag exports, such as sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures that are not based on science, burdensome facility registration requirements, and barriers to poultry in countries affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza that are not justified by the risk, in the U.S. view.