U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council should not be seen as a prelude to reentering talks for a comprehensive trade agreement, and she threw cold water on the idea of a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom as well.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, in a year-end video, pointed to a number of settlements during 2021 that both bolstered America's relationships with its allies and promoted the fight against climate change. She pointed to the settlement of a Section 337 case between two South Korean battery makers that allowed for a Georgia plant to open (see 2104120004); the settlement of the 17-year dispute over subsidies to Airbus and Boeing (see 2106150021 and 2106170025); and the agreement between the European Union and the U.S. to replace Section 232 tariffs with a quota system (see 2111010039).
Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union renewed their interim free trade deal until Oct. 27, 2025, or until a final agreement is reached and takes effect, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported Jan. 3. Iran and the EAEU in 2018 agreed to a three-year interim deal, which reduced customs duties on more than 800 categories of goods, including more than 500 Iranian exports and more than 350 EAEU exports, HKTDC said. Those goods account for about half of the trade under the deal, the report said, which has “grown significantly” since the interim deal took effect Oct. 27, 2019.
India and Australia are on track to soon finish negotiating a free trade deal, the India Brand Equity Foundation said Dec. 31. IBEF, a government export promotion agency, said the deal is expected to be completed by the end of this year and will cover products, services, investment, origin rules, customs facilitation and other “legal and institutional problems.”
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Deputy USTR Sarah Bianchi spoke with Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa Dec. 21 about adjusting the level of U.S. beef exports that triggers a safeguard tariff, according to a USTR readout of the video call.
The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has 11 member countries since the U.S. backed out in 2016, has attracted four applications this year, from the United Kingdom, Taiwan, China and, most recently, South Korea. The U.S., which took a leading role in negotiating the high-standard free trade agreement, is unlikely to ask to come back in the next two years, panelists on a Hudson Institute discussion agreed.
Despite repeated lobbying and threats of tariffs on U.S. exports from Canada and Mexico, the Senate Finance Committee is proposing that a purchase credit for electric vehicles remain more generous for union-made, U.S.-assembled cars and trucks through 2026, and be reserved only for U.S.-made vehicles starting in 2027.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai took a victory lap at the U.S Chamber of Commerce's Transatlantic Business Works Summit, pointing to the removal of the digital services taxes on American firms, the agreement on steel and aluminum and the resolution of a 17-year fight on subsidies for Airbus and Boeing.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and the United Kingdom's Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said they want to consult on steel and aluminum early next year, "with a view to combating global excess capacity and addressing outstanding concerns on US tariffs and UK rebalancing measures," according to a U.K. readout of the visit Dec. 8. It said that Trevelyan invited Raimondo to London for those further talks in January.
Trade was barely touched on during the virtual meeting of President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Anna Ashton, vice president of government affairs for the U.S.-China Business Council. Ashton, who was speaking on a Nov. 23 Twitter panel hosted by Neysun Mahboubi, a research scholar at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Contemporary China, said that follows a pattern in the administration. She said that "they are unabashedly reframing the relationship… as a competitive one," which makes her wonder where the commercial relationship fits in. The recent panel was reacting to the earlier video call (see 2111160004).