Iran is reducing its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action because it said other JCPOA “parties do not abide by theirs,” according to a June 18 press release by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
The day after President Donald Trump officially launched his re-election campaign, moderate Democrat Rep. Ron Kind warned the administration's top trade official that the China trade war is making voters in his home state of Wisconsin lose patience. Trump won Kind's district by 4 percentage points, and narrowly won Wisconsin in the Electoral College.
Most of the questions to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about the Section 301 tariff actions focused on the pain to U.S. consumers and the difficulties faced by importers of products that are subject to 25 percent tariffs. But Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told the nation's top trade negotiator that even a local meat locker has been hurt by the trade war. Thune, who was questioning Lighthizer during his appearance June 18 in front of the Senate Finance Committee, said the meat locker employee told him that before the trade war began, someone would buy cow hides for $150 each. China imports a lot of animal skins to support its furniture and shoemaking industries. "Now I have to pay 600 a head to haul it away," Thune said the man told him, which is a cost of $40,000 a year. For a business that size, that could be the entire profit margin, Thune said.
Auto exporters will be “among the biggest beneficiaries” of a ratified U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said during a June 18 Senate Finance Committee hearing, adding that he has “hope” the U.S. will reach a trade deal with Japan within the next “few months.”
Trade negotiations will resume with China ahead of a meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping, Trump tweeted June 18. He said he and Xi "will be having an extended meeting next week at the G-20 in Japan." The White House said the two leaders talked on that morning about "structural barriers to trade with China and achieving meaningful reforms that are enforceable and verifiable."
China has resumed accepting imports of beef from Brazil, after having suspended them on June 3 after a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy turned up in the Brazilian state of Mato Grasso (see 1906040066), according to a June 13 press release from the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture. China is the only one of Brazil’s trading partners that has a policy of suspending imports when cases of atypical BSE are found, and Brazil’s Agriculture Minister said she will continue negotiating a new protocol with China, the press release said.
A spokeswoman for China’s National Development and Reform Commission on June 17 gave the clearest indication yet that China may seek to impose restrictions on rare earths exports to retaliate for U.S. tariffs. In response to a question during a regularly scheduled press conference on potential export restrictions, the spokeswoman said China is “resolutely opposed” to “anyone who attempts to use China’s rare earth resources to manufacture products” that are used to “contain and suppress China’s development,” according to an unofficial translation. The spokeswoman also mentioned the possibility of export controls and traceability requirements for Chinese rare earths.
The European Union released a report detailing what it says are “45 new trade barriers” outside the EU in 2018 that damaged EU businesses, costing them “billions of Euros every year,” the EU said in a June 17 press release. The EU said the report “confirms” the rise of trade barriers encountered by European companies in foreign markets, which is now at 425 barriers in 59 countries.
Before the U.S.-China trade war began, all countries that exported goods to China faced an average 8 percent tariff, according to a recent analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. But now, U.S. exports to China are taxed on average at 20.7 percent, while German, Asian and Canadian producers are facing an average tariff of 6.7 percent.