The Trump administration has “done virtually nothing to support exports,” failing to open new foreign markets for U.S. sellers while also tightening export controls, according to an Aug. 2 report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. At the same time, U.S. export growth has “dropped sharply,” the report said. “Unless the president reverses course, his trade policy will continue to weaken rather than strengthen the US economy as well as undermine the global trading system,” the report said.
U.S. sanctions on Iran will force the country to come to the negotiating table but may be permanently damaging U.S. relationships with other trading partners, said James Cartwright, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a current board director for the Atlantic Council.
President Donald Trump held a press conference Aug. 2 at the White House with European officials and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to announce an increase in tariff-free access to U.S. hormone-free beef in the European Union. The changes to the EU's tariff rate quotas will go into effect after the European Parliament approves hem, which is expected in the fall. It was originally announced by the EU in June (see 1906140026).
The U.S.-China Business Council urged the Trump administration to reconsider his threat of a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, saying the threats will hurt the reputation and businesses of U.S. exporters, in an Aug. 1 press release.
China is suspending purchases of U.S. agricultural products in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s decision to impose an additional 10-percent tariff on Chinese imports, according to an unofficial translation of a press release from China's Ministry of Commerce. China, calling Trump’s move a “serious violation” of negotiations, also said it is not ruling out imposing new import tariffs on “newly purchased” U.S. agricultural products. China said it has a “large market capacity” for U.S. agricultural goods and said it hopes the U.S. “will conscientiously implement the consensus reached” during the two sides’ last meeting.
Brazil suspended the implementation of a regulation relating to its “Ex-Tarifario list,” which allows for duty-free or reduced tariff treatment of certain imports in the information technology and telecommunications sectors that are not available domestically, according to an Aug.1 report by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. The regulation was criticized by Brazil’s industry, which said it allows “the addition of used goods to the Ex-Tarifario list” and introduces new parameters for comparing “the equivalency of foreign and domestic goods, such as price and delivery times,” the report said.
Taiwan lowered Most Favored Nation tariffs on certain agricultural goods from Japan in a bid to “normalize” the Taiwan-Japan trade relationship, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service said in a report issued July 31. The two countries’ trade relationship is marred by the 2018 “anti-Fukushima food referendum,” the USDA said, which kept in place a ban on Fukushima agricultural exports to Taiwan for two years. Taiwan is hoping the tariff reduction helps it earn Japanese support for joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the report said. The tariff changes were passed by Taiwan’s legislature July 2.
China is expected to retaliate against President Donald Trump’s announcement on July 31 that the U.S. will be imposing a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods under List 4, according to an Aug. 1 post by Ted Murphy, a Baker McKenzie lawyer. “We expect that China will retaliate … as it has done in the past,” he said.
China said it “strongly opposes” President Donald Trump's decision to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods and it will respond with “necessary measures,” according to an unofficial translation of an Aug. 2 statement from the Ministry of Commerce spokesperson.
The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of July 31 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):