The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will issue its Section 301 investigation report and “any proposed action in the investigation” Monday on France’s digital service tax (DST), said the agency Wednesday. Tech firms and trade associations blasted the DST during the summer as a radical departure from international norm that discriminates against U.S. companies and undermines efforts to reach global, multilateral consensus on the digital economy (see 1908190043). France’s DST “invites other trading partners to similarly disregard their international commitments and move forward with their own proposed taxes,” said the Computer & Communications Industry Association Wednesday. “A timely, proportionate and impactful response is needed by the U.S. to send a message that our trading partners may not single out American enterprises for discriminatory treatment.”

Trade observers don't think that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will announce new tariffs on French products on Dec. 2, when it is scheduled to release a report on France's Digital Services Tax (see 1911270047), but there may be a list of potential targets for the future. Although the tax passed the French legislature in July, it has not been levied while U.S. and French authorities negotiate, and while the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development works on a global approach to taxing companies like Google, Facebook and others.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will issue its Section 301 investigation report and “any proposed action in the investigation” Monday on France’s digital service tax (DST), said the agency Wednesday. Tech firms and trade associations blasted the DST during the summer as a radical departure from international norm that discriminates against U.S. companies and undermines efforts to reach global, multilateral consensus on the digital economy (see 1908190043). France’s DST “invites other trading partners to similarly disregard their international commitments and move forward with their own proposed taxes,” said the Computer & Communications Industry Association Wednesday. “A timely, proportionate and impactful response is needed by the U.S. to send a message that our trading partners may not single out American enterprises for discriminatory treatment.”

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will issue its Section 301 investigation report and “any proposed action in the investigation” Monday on France’s digital service tax (DST), said the agency Wednesday. Tech firms and trade associations blasted the DST during the summer as a radical departure from international norm that discriminates against U.S. companies and undermines efforts to reach global, multilateral consensus on the digital economy (see 1908190043). France’s DST “invites other trading partners to similarly disregard their international commitments and move forward with their own proposed taxes,” said the Computer & Communications Industry Association Wednesday. “A timely, proportionate and impactful response is needed by the U.S. to send a message that our trading partners may not single out American enterprises for discriminatory treatment.”

Dairy license holders’ DAIRIES accounts are not automatically being decremented for entries subject to Section 301 tariffs on goods from the European Union, the Cheese Importers Association of America said, citing the Foreign Agricultural Service. “In order to resolve this issue, license holders should direct their brokers to contact CBP at HQQUOTA@cbp.dhs.gov to have CBP manually post the affected entries in the quota system and have the entries reflected in the DAIRIES system,” CIAA said. “Brokers should be prepared to share the following information with CBP about affected entries: Entry Number, Line Number, License Number, CO Origin, Quantity, and HTS Number.” CBP sent out a CSMS message on the issue Nov. 6 (see 1911060009).

U.S. importers sourcing smart speakers, Bluetooth devices, smartwatches and fitness trackers from China filed the most List 4A Section 301 tariff exclusion requests of any consumer tech category through Nov. 27 since the Office of U.S. Trade Representative began accepting the requests Oct. 31, the public docket shows. The broad assortment of goods imported under the 8517.62.0090 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the U.S. had the widest tariff exposure of any consumer tech product on List 4A, according to an International Trade Today analysis of Census Bureau statistics accessed through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool.

Global shipments of personal computing devices will rise 0.5 percent to 407.7 million units before incurring 2.6 percent compound annual growth rate declines through 2023, reported IDC Tuesday. HP and Dell, which IDC ranked second and third in global market share behind Lenovo, said Tuesday they expect industry CPU-chip shortages to persist well into 2020.

When tariffs on their entire product line rose to 25 percent, small bike companies were faced with difficult decisions on raising prices and reducing staff. For Mehdi Farsi, co-founder of State Bicycle Co., a 10-year-old firm in Arizona, the financial burden meant he ended free shipping for online customers, then raised the price of the second-highest seller from $449 to $459. Shipping usually cost the company between $25 and $50, depending on the distance. He also didn't replace one person who left the company, and laid off one worker. Currently, including the owners, there are 15 workers, a couple of whom work only part time.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced that it will release a report from its Section 301 investigation on France's Digital Services Tax on Dec. 2. The Nov. 27 press release said that its recommendation of how to respond to the DST will be made at that time. Trade groups, companies and think tanks submitted comments and testified last summer about their problems with the DST (see 1908140023), but several said that tariffs on French imports under Section 301 are not the way to fix the problem. Many of France's most identifiable exports to the U.S. are already targets of tariffs because of the Airbus dispute.

Best Buy was a bright spot amid mixed retail reports Tuesday, reporting a 1.7 percent Q3 comparative sales increase and raising the bottom end of its full-year outlook. Shares hit a 52-week high Tuesday, closing 9.8 percent higher to $81.53.