China approved its Wuwei Customs Supervision Area in the Gansu Province for imported timber, according to a Dec. 4 report from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. The facility was approved to import eight varieties of “bark-free boards,” the report said, including white birch, larch, Scots pine, Chinese pine, fir and spruce, which must be transported in sealed containers. Chinese customs may announce additional customs areas approved for imported timber, the report said.
Exports to China
The Dec. 3 House passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019 will have serious repercussions for U.S.-China trade talks if the bill becomes law, a China Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson threatened on Dec. 4. H.R. 649 and the companion S. 178 that cleared the Senate in September demand tough U.S. sanctions on China over reports of government-run detention centers imprisoning millions of Muslim-minority Chinese citizens in Xinjiang.
President Donald Trump has “no deadline” for striking a trade deal with China, he told reporters Dec. 3 during a meeting in London. “I like the idea of waiting until after the election for the China deal,” he said. The Chinese “want to make a deal now, and we’ll see whether or not the deal’s going to be right,” he said. “It’s got to be right.” A trade agreement is “dependent on one thing -- do I want to make it?” Trump said. “We’re doing very well with China right now. We can do even better with the flick of a pen.” China didn’t immediately comment. Extending the U.S.-China trade war for another year past the 2020 election would be a “bad deal” for “every segment of the economy,” said David French, senior vice president-government relations at the National Retail Federation. “We want and need to see a deal as soon as possible,” said French. Four rounds of Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods at 15 percent and higher “continue to hurt U.S. businesses, workers and consumers and are a substantial drag on the U.S. economy,” he said.
The World Customs Organization issued the following release on commercial trade and related matters:
China recently issued a draft consultation paper for new value-added tax legislation that aims to “elevate” the treatment of VAT rules to a legislative format and implement internationally recognized VAT guidelines, KPMG said in a Dec. 2 post. The “consultation process” for the VAT legislation is open until Dec. 26, and will eventually be considered and likely approved by China’s National People’s Congress in early 2020, the post said.
China and El Salvador signed a memorandum of understanding to create a “working group on trade” to ease trade restrictions between the two nations, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a Dec. 3 press release, according to an unofficial translation. The memorandum aims to “further enhance the quality and level of bilateral trade” and strengthen “economic investment,” China said.
Two prominent Republicans questioned the suitability of switching tariffs for quotas because of currency manipulation in Brazil and Argentina, as President Donald Trump said Dec. 2 he is doing. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., the leading critic of Trump's trade policy, issued a statement that night that said, “He is justifying these tariffs by citing Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. This provision is exclusively meant for national security threats. Yet, the President has acknowledged that the real purpose of this action is to combat currency manipulation -- which does not pose a national security threat. Furthermore, even if this action were legitimate, the statutory window for imposing these tariffs has closed. These actions further underscore that Congress should take up my legislation that would reassert congressional authority regarding imposition of national security tariffs.”
Recent editions of Mexico's Diario Oficial list trade-related notices as follows:
In the Nov. 25 - Dec. 2 editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
China’s Ministry of Commerce recently published a list of antidumping measures that will expire in 2020, according to a Dec. 2 report from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. Antidumping duties on certain polyamide chips from the U.S., Italy, France and Taiwan will expire Oct. 13; duties on adipic acid from South Korea, the European Union and U.S. will expire Nov. 2; and duties on methyl methacrylate from Singapore, Thailand and Japan will expire Dec. 1. Companies may ask China to review the expiration to potentially continue the antidumping duties by submitting an application at least 60 days before they expire, the report said. Companies who ask for the duties to continue must “believe” the expiration of the duties will lead to “injury to the domestic industry.”