The European Commission created a list of about $20 billion in U.S. imports that it could raise duties on, according to an April 12 report from Reuters. The potential tariffs stem from a World Trade Organization dispute between the U.S. and the European Union over aircraft subsidies given Boeing. The U.S. had previously identified $11 billion in European imports that could be targets of retaliatory tariffs if the World Trade Organization authorizes that level of compensation in a similar WTO dispute over subsidies for Airbus (see 1904090057).
The European Council approved a negotiating mandate for trade talks with the U.S., but says it will not finish a free-trade agreement until the steel and aluminum tariffs on its member countries are lifted. The mandate, which was approved April 15, excludes agricultural trade from the talks.
Recent editions of Mexico's Diario Oficial list trade-related notices as follows:
Mexico will seek to crack down on corruption, triple duty collections and greatly reduce maritime port and Northern border wait times under a recently announced reform plan, General Administrator of Customs Ricardo Peralta Saucedo said in an interview with Mexican news agency Notimex posted by the Mexican Confederation of Customs Broker Associations on April 15.
A new single market covering most of Africa is now set to take effect, but several roadblocks remain in the way before full implementation, according to an alert from the British law firm Freshfields. The Gambia became the 22nd country to ratify the agreement April 2, triggering the 22-country threshold for the agreement coming into force 30 days after all 22 ratifications are filed with the African Union. The planned single market and eventual customs union has been signed by 52 African countries, although the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria, declined to join. Despite some optimism surrounding the agreement, which reportedly could double trade within Africa if tariffs are eliminated and non-tariff barriers are reduced, there’s still some work to be done. A schedule of tariff concessions still needs to be developed, as do annexes on trade in services, among other parts of the agreement. The remaining portions are “expected to be concluded by 2020,” the alert said.
The United Kingdom’s Department for International Trade on April 12 posted details of its recently concluded trade continuity agreements with Norway and Iceland, as well as two letters on temporary treatment for Norwegian and Icelandic products after Brexit. The agreements, which take effect in the event the U.K. leaves the European Union with no transition deal in place, would keep tariffs at current levels rather than most-favored nation rates.
The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices as of April 12 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):
The Mexican Confederation of Customs Broker Associations (CAAAREM) issued a circular April 12 correcting earlier information it disseminated on recent changes to the Mexican tariff schedule. The new circular says some tariff rate increases from 20 percent to 25 percent on goods of chapters 61, 62 and 63 will take effect May 6, not April 11 as it previously reported (see 1904110057), and remain in effect for 180 days. The circular was posted by the trade consultancy AJR Mexico.
A report in the Japanese press says that Japan's Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi will meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer April 15-16 in Washington, but that auto export quotas, something Lighthizer pushed for in the 1980s, are unacceptable. The free-trade agreement talks, first announced in September 2018 (see 1809260049), could address non-tariff barriers. Nikkei Asian Review reporters say that Japan "is willing to discuss the streamlining of customs procedures should Washington demand them. But it does not plan to negotiate issues that will take years to realize because of the legislative revisions required, including the drug-pricing system, financial regulations and food safety standards." American drug makers are frustrated by new price constraints in Japan, and want that addressed (see 1904030043).
It is unclear how China will enforce some of the regulations introduced in its new e-commerce law, according to an April 7 report published by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, leaving some foreign companies and small businesses uncertain about selling products to China online. Some foreign department stores that previously shipped online sales directly to China have already switched to large Chinese e-commerce platforms that import through a Chinese distributor, according to the report. Others, the report said, “have pulled out of the Chinese market entirely.”