International coordination on how to account for embedded emissions in traded products is essential, Canada asserted in a recently published white paper about its exploration of a carbon border adjustment tax. "Work on international border carbon adjustments is in progress. An important part of advancing this work is ensuring a common understanding. To this effect, the government will continue its important conversations with Canadians and international partners, including the United States and European Union, in the coming months," the government wrote.
A rise in U.S. secondary sanctions is increasingly leading to issues in Europe about how companies perform global sanctions compliance while simultaneously avoiding violating the European Union’s blocking regulations, trade lawyers said. Until the U.S. changes its sanctions approach -- which is possible under the Biden administration -- those disputes are expected to continue rising, the lawyers said.
CBP’s Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee’s full Export Modernization White Paper includes a range of appendices that provide greater insight into how CBP and the COAC envision export modernization. The 127-page paper, originally issued as an abbreviated 24-page version in June, defines the roles and responsibilities of parties in the export process, dives further into export modernization recommendations and includes a range of areas in the Foreign Trade Regulations that will likely be revised. The other appendices include an analysis of Electronic Export Information data elements, information on post-departure filing and other documents produced by the COAC’s working groups.
The United Kingdom will no longer require wine importers to fill out the VI-1 certificate on their wine imports, saving around 14 cents for every bottle, the country's Department for International Trade announced in a July 25 news release. The regulation, which had been adopted from the European Union when the U.K. left the bloc, required laboratory analysis of the wine to prove it was in line with certain EU health and safety regulations. The U.K. marketed the move as a “red tape cut” that would lead to substantial savings for British wine drinkers and businesses. “Cutting this needless red tape will place our businesses in a stronger position internationally, as they continue to grow, while consumers can raise a glass to great wine from around the world,” said British Food and Drink Minister Victoria Prentis. “Great Britain is already a global hub in the international wine trade, supporting many jobs across the country. Ending the requirement for import certificates will strengthen this position and is a clear benefit of now having the freedom to determine our own rules.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration is proposing to list amineptine, a synthetic tricyclic antidepressant with central nervous system (CNS) stimulating properties that, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, has no approved medical use and no known therapeutic application in the U.S., under schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, it said in a notice released July 21. "If finalized, this action would impose the regulatory controls and administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions applicable to schedule I controlled substances on persons who handle (manufacture, distribute, reverse distribute, import, export, engage in research, conduct instructional activities or chemical analysis with, or possess), or propose to handle, amineptine." Comments are due Sept. 20.
World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said there is now political support to move forward on an agreement to curb subsidies that lead to overfishing. The draft text has been blessed by all the heads of delegations in Geneva, she said in a news conference July 15.
The U.S. updated its Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory, highlighting the increasing supply chain, sanctions, labor and export control risks of doing business in the Xinjiang region. The July 13 update, which builds and expands on the original advisory issued last year (see 2007010040), says China is committing genocide through its human rights violations against Muslim minorities, provides guidance to businesses that may invest in implicated Chinese companies, updates a list of U.S. enforcement actions related to Xinjiang and "strengthens" recommendations for companies that risk doing business in the region.
The European Union and the U.S. working together have the leverage to change China's distortions in the world economy, experts speaking during a three-day series on EU-U.S. trade issues said. But it's not easy, with the economic interests of German manufacturers in China, the history of trade tensions across the Atlantic, and bureaucratic torpor on both sides, they said.
Amec Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd., a subsidiary of United Kingdom-based engineering company John Wood Group, agreed to pay a penalty of more than $18 million to settle charges that it paid bribes to foreign officials in Brazil in exchange for a $190 million contract to design a gas-to-chemicals complex, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York said in a June 25 news release. Amec Foster Wheeler was charged with conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery portions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the release said. The company entered into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) to resolve the charges, the release said. From 2011 to 2014, Amec Foster Wheeler conspired with other parties, including an Italian sales agent, to pay bribes to Brazilian state-owned oil company officials to win the high-priced contract.
The European Council and European Parliament signed a regulation to fund customs control equipment, a June 24 EC news release said. The new funding will support the purchase, maintenance and upgrade of such items as X-ray scanners, radiation detectors, automated number plate recognition systems and mobile laboratories for goods sample analysis. The increased funding is part of the European Union's 2021-2027 budget and has a ceiling of around 1 billion euros.