Simon Lester, president of China Trade Monitor and WorldTradeLaw.net, said he doesn't expect any large changes in the Biden administration's trade policy following the midterm elections. In a blog post Nov. 15, Lester wrote that while the administration could look at the election results as not provoking too much of a backlash to its trade policy, it's more likely that the election cycle was favorable to Democrats, due to the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision and "terrible" GOP candidates.
If the U.S. position on calculating the regional content of automobiles prevails in a USMCA state-to-state dispute, Baker McKenzie associate Eunkyung Kim Shin predicted, companies would be likely to import more parts used to assemble the automobiles. Shin, who spoke at a Baker McKenzie webinar Nov. 15, said that when the entire value of a part counts toward the vehicle regional content threshold once that part meets its own rule of origin, it makes sense to build the part in Mexico, the U.S. or Canada. But if the non-local content of those parts is not disregarded when doing vehicle-level calculations, it might be cheaper just to import the parts from a lower-cost country, she said.
Brazil recently added 599 items to 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 Nov. 7. The 521 added capital goods are classified in Harmonized System chapters 84, 85, 86, 89 and 90, while the 78 added IT and telecom goods are classified in chapters 84, 85 and 90. Duty-free treatment lasts through Dec. 31, 2025. Brazil also established and renewed tariff rate quotas on several imports, including acrylic/modacrylic filament tow, glass carboys and bottles, certain glass bottles, alloy sheets and cellphone base station antennas. Other recent changes include revisions to Brazil's list of exceptions to the Mercosur common external tariff and other tariff changes.
As U.S. chip and technology companies continue to grapple with the U.S’s latest export restrictions on China (see 2211010042), a number of firms fear the controls will hurt their sales and exacerbate uncertainty in the semiconductor sector and the industry’s supply chains. In filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission this month, at least one firm projected revenue losses while others said they are still assessing the impact of the complex controls and whether they can secure export licenses.
Singapore Customs imposed a revised Goods and Services Tax rate, increasing the mark from 7% to 8% to take effect Jan. 1, Singapore Customs announced Nov. 4. The new rate will apply to all imports and goods released from licensed premises for local consumption after Dec. 31. Singapore Customs advised importers to clear their goods by Dec. 31 for in-payment (GST) and in-payment (duty and GST) permits with the 7% GST rate, but said an extension of those permits' validity period will not be allowed for permits that expire on or after Dec. 31.
The International Trade Commission, which is tasked with measuring the economic impact of the USMCA's stringent auto rules of origin, heard from auto industry players in the U.S. and Mexico that satisfying the labor value content audits is next-to-impossible.
There's a consensus on the need for reform at the World Trade Organization, according to Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for WTO and Multilateral Affairs Andrea Durkin, but since member countries have different ideas about what reform is, and different ideas about how to achieve it, it will be a "significant challenge" to make changes in Geneva.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's John Murphy said that manufacturers are some of the biggest supporters of free trade deals because half their goods are exported.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will not open a portal for comments about the economic impact of Section 301 tariffs until Nov. 15 (see 2210120051), but it has now posted the questionnaire, which has a dozen pages of questions, and will allow commenters to target specific Harmonized Tariff Schedule codes.
The top trade official from the EU, European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, said the incentives for the green transition in the Inflation Reduction Act appear to discriminate against automotive, battery, renewables and energy-intensive businesses operating in the EU. "It will not be easy to fix it -- but fix it we must," he said during an Oct. 31 speech at the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Prague. He also said, "This is an issue of concern for many countries and businesses, which I have raised with our US partners over these past weeks, and it featured prominently in today's discussions."