China and Nicaragua signed a free trade agreement Aug. 31, China's Ministry of Commerce announced, according to an unofficial translation. Negotiations on the deal began in July 2022 and were concluded within a year, the ministry said, adding that the agreement will allow for a "mutual opening up" in trade in goods and services and investment market access.
U.S. rice exports to Costa Rica have “plummeted” following Costa Rica’s decision a year ago to reduce tariffs on rice from all origins, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said in an Aug. 25 report. The agency said American rice exports to Costa Rica fell 98% through June since the tariff reduction, adding that as “tariffs on South American-origin rice fell to 5 percent in August 2022, purchases of U.S. rice all but stopped."
The USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service published status reports this week on benefits for U.S. potato, wine and nuts exports as the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement enters its fifth year. The reports outline the various duties that apply to each export this year.
Analysts from the Tax Foundation and from the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that hiking tariffs on all imports by 10% would not boost domestic manufacturing, with CSIS's Bill Reinsch noting "you would be hard pressed to find an economist who thinks they make any sense."
The U.S. government must take a host of actions to slow down Chinese "techno-economic dominance," including preventing Chinese firms from being listed on U.S. stock markets and limiting investment into China, Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said in an Aug. 28 post.
Connecticut-based electronics manufacturer Hubbell Inc. accused freight forwarder DSV of violating U.S. shipping regulations by failing to provide the required service under a negotiated contract, Hubbell said in an Aug. 28 complaint to the Federal Maritime Commission. The manufacturer also accused DSV, headquartered in Denmark, of assessing $900,000 in overbilled or “improper” charges.
Researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies expect the U.S. will get "a taste of its own medicine” when China appeals its loss over Section 232 retaliatory tariffs at the World Trade Organization, adding that China likely won't have to drop the tariffs since there is no appellate body to take that appeal.
Brazil recently removed 1,443 items from its list of foreign capital goods and information technology and telecommunications goods subject to duty-free treatment under its Ex-Tarifario regime, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported Aug. 28. The goods are classified in Harmonized System chapters 84, 85, 86 and 90. HKTDC said most of the goods were removed for "inactivity reasons."
India's Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal told U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai that he will "find a solution that addresses both countries' concerns" when it comes to India's new import licensing regime for technology imports. The new system is supposed to go into effect Nov. 1; U.S. technology companies have said it will hurt their exports to India (see 2308170028).
Taiwan is requiring a certificate of origin and customs approval before certain Chinese-origin chipmaking equipment can be shipped to the U.S. The requirement will apply to shipments of certain “machine tools operated by laser processes, of a kind used solely or principally for the manufacture of printed circuits, printed circuit assemblies, parts” or “parts of automatic data processing machines,” Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign Trade announced this month.