Trade groups representing major exporters -- including the American Chemistry Council, the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and agricultural interests -- are telling the Biden administration that they are disappointed that regulatory barriers to trade are not being addressed in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
House Ways and Means Committee Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., and Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., introduced the Undertaking Negotiations on Investment and Trade for Economic Dynamism (United) Act, a bill that directs the administration to begin negotiations for a comprehensive free trade agreement within 180 days of passage.
India will appeal a World Trade Organization panel report in a case brought by Japan on India's tariff treatment of various information technology products, the WTO announced. But because of the U.S. refusal to seat members on the Appellate Body, the case will stall pending any change in the AB's situation. In the case, the panel said that India's duties violated the WTO tariff commitments under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and Article II of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (see 2304170018).
World Trade Organization members negatively affected by national security-related trade restrictions may be able to impose retaliatory measures as a way to address the U.S. gripe with the body's review of national security issues, former Office of the U.S. Trade Representative counsel Warren Maruyama and former WTO deputy director-general Alan Wolff said. In a working paper released by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Maruyama and Wolff propose a compromise to the U.S. position that national security claims are nonreviewable.
Members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate introduced the Safeguarding American Value-Added Exports (SAVE) Act, which will amend the Agriculture Trade Act of 1978 to "include and define a list of common names for ag commodities, food products, and terms used in marketing and packaging of products," Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., announced in a press release last week. In addition, SAVE also will direct the secretary of agriculture and the U.S. trade representative to negotiate with "our foreign trading partners to defend the right to use common names for ag commodities in those same foreign markets," the press release said.
The European Commission this week proposed to reform its customs system, including by creating a single interface called the EU Customs Data Hub that will allow for the submission of all customs information on imports. Under the plan, the EU also would create an EU Customs Authority, which it said would boost cooperation between customs surveillance and law enforcement authorities at the EU and member state level, and would eliminate the de minimis threshold for imports under $162.
Former chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Gregg Doud called for the use of the new enforcement mechanism in the USMCA during a House Agriculture Committee hearing May 11.
The chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee used his perch to promote a bill he sponsored that would allow the president to lower duties on non-import-sensitive goods made by a country that lost exports due to coercive actions; increase duties on imports from the "foreign adversary" committing the coercion; and allow the U.S. to more easily facilitate trade, including exports, with the coerced parties (see 2302230021).
Turkey set new import duties on wheat, barley, corn and other grains, which were previously tariff-free but became subject to a 130% duty on May 1, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said in a recent report. USDA said the duty was likely introduced to protect farmers from a potential influx of cheap grain imports caused by a “widening price gap between domestic and Black Sea grain.” The tariff was also “higher than was originally expected and surprised some local grain traders,” the agency said, adding that the rate is the maximum it can set on grains under World Trade Organization rules.
Some supply chain agreements in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework may be announced in May, according to officials at the Asia Society Policy Institute, and the institute held a webinar May 3 and released a paper with recommendations of how to shape the supply chain pillar ahead of those announcements.