The U.S. will soon start discussions with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations about a possible connection between ASEAN's customs filing platform with the U.S. platform, the State Department said in a Nov. 3 fact sheet about "Expanding the Enduring Partnership" with ASEAN. "The United States and the ASEAN Secretariat announced the opening of negotiations to link the ASEAN 'Single Window' with the U.S. Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) System, which governs all trade in goods entering the United States," State said. "Making this link will further facilitate $272 billion in two-way trade in goods between the United States and ASEAN."
NEW YORK -- The U.S. and China are intertwined, and revealing how deeply that is true is the silver lining of the trade war, according to Dr. Huiyao Wang, president for Center for China and Globalization, a Chinese think tank. Wang said the West mischaracterizes forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft and favoritism toward Chinese companies within China. He said that the American Chamber of Commerce in China is pleased about how the new IP protection law is going to be implemented, and he asked if forced technology transfer is such a burden, why don't you hear companies publicly complaining about it.
The Census Bureau posted the latest versions of the Schedule B and Harmonized Tariff Schedule tables on its website, the agency said by email. There were no additions to the Schedule B, Census said. "The ACE AESDirect program has been updated with the new HTS codes," it said.
China and U.S. agreed to lift tariffs in stages as they progress in trade talks, China’s Ministry of Commerce said during a Nov. 7 press conference. “If the two parties reach the first phase agreement, they should cancel the tariffs that have been imposed according to the content of the agreement,” a Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said, according to an unofficial translation. “The trade war starts with the addition of tariffs and should also be terminated by the elimination of tariffs.” The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not comment.
U.S. agriculture official Ted McKinney said pesticide maximum residue levels (MRLs) are too often used as trade barriers and praised an endorsement by the Inter-American Board of Agriculture that emphasized the need for global science-based agricultural regulations.
NEW YORK -- A former WTO appellate body panelist criticized the administration's trade policies as chaotic and ineffective and former U.S. Trade Representative General Counsel Stephen Vaughn defended them, while a top WTO official tried to see the good in both arguments. They were all speaking on the state of world trade at an International Trade Symposium co-sponsored by Finastra and The Economist on Nov. 6.
The World Trade Organization cannot negotiate trade liberalization, and trade distorting agricultural subsidies are getting worse, not better, said Aluisio de Lima-Campos, chairman of the ABCI Institute, the Portuguese acronym for Brazilian International Trade Scholars. He was leading a panel Nov. 5 at American University, the end of a daylong trade symposium co-sponsored by ABCI.
The United Kingdom's Department for International Trade released a Nov. 4 policy paper on the country’s approach to continuing trade with Georgia after Brexit. The paper provides an overview of the agreement and explains “significant differences” between the deal and the current agreement between the European Union and Georgia. The paper also includes information on tariff rates, customs procedures, rules of origin, technical barriers to trade and more.
China will take more measures to lower tariffs and diversify imports “from around the world,” President Xi Jinping said during a speech to open China’s international trade fair on Nov. 5. Xi said the country plans to continue expanding market access to foreign companies and is focusing on increasing its imports. “China will give greater importance to import. We will continue to lower tariffs and institutional transaction costs, develop demonstration zones to promote import trade by creative means, and import more high-quality goods and services from around the world,” Xi said.
One panelist said it will take 20 years to know who are the winners and losers of today's tariffs and export restrictions. Another panelist said U.S. factory workers making washing machines and solar panels are clearly winning from the safeguards launched nearly two years ago, as are Vietnam and Mexico. Another panelist said Vietnam and Thailand, and Mexico to a much lesser degree. As moderator Lucas Queiroz Piers said, “It is a confusing moment." The Alston & Bird legal consultant was coordinating a panel called "U.S. Sanctions and Trade War: Winners and Losers," at an American University Washington School of Law International Trade Symposium on Nov. 5.