Reps. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., and Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, both members of the House Ways and Means Committee, announced last week that they have sent two letters to the Biden administration calling for more action to promote U.S. biofuel exports.
If Donald Trump is elected to a second presidential term, his administration should focus on communicating better with other governments and American companies about upcoming policy decisions, said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative.
The Council of the EU and the European Parliament "provisionally" agreed March 20 to renew until June 5, 2025, the suspension of import duties and quotas on goods from Ukraine for another year, the council announced. The council and parliament will next need to formally approve the agreement for the one-year extension.
The Council of the EU on March 19 approved reform efforts for the EU Court of Justice, transferring jurisdiction of various issues to the EU General Court. The council must now approve amendments to both courts' rules of procedure before the changes take effect.
The Council of the EU on March 18 cleared the final hurdle to ratification of the EU-Chile bilateral trade agreement (see 2312050013), the council announced. After Chile completes its "internal ratification process" and the two sides have "communicated the completion of their respective internal procedures," the deal will take effect on "the first day of the third month following the date of notification," the council said.
The Census Bureau emailed tips this week on how to address the most frequent messages generated this month in the Automated Export System.
Twenty-two Republican senators -- including the top Republicans on the Senate Finance and Agriculture committees and one of the front-runners to replace Minority Leader Mitch McConnell -- argue that the "current sharp decline in U.S. agricultural exports is directly attributable to and exacerbated by an unambitious U.S. trade strategy that is failing to meaningfully expand market access or reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade."
The Federal Maritime Commission is preparing for another uptick in enforcement and is expecting a range of rulemakings to be finalized during or before FY 2025, including a new charge complaint process, a new container data collection effort and a new electronic court case management system. The commission previewed those updates as part of a $48.4 million congressional funding request released this week for FY 2025 -- about a $5 million increase from the $43.7 million it requested the previous year (see 2303200063).
If the EU can’t agree to new corporate supply chain due diligence rules, European companies will instead face a growing, complex patchwork of national due diligence laws that will strain their compliance departments, leaders of two Dutch nonprofits said in an opinion piece this week for the Business and Human Rights Resource Center.
Thailand last month eliminated import duties and reduced its excise tax for wine, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said in a March 5 report. The change allows U.S. wine exports to enter Thailand duty free as of Feb. 23, which is expected to reduce the Thai retail price of American wine by about 35%-40%, USDA said. The agency said Thailand imported $132 million worth of wine in 2023, and 8% came from the U.S.