GENEVA -- Trade officials are beginning to float ideas on how to classify and describe additional goods for tariff-free treatment under the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA), officials and informed sources said following the start of informal talks. The World Trade Organization ITA Committee meeting in May agreed to begin meeting bilaterally and in small groups to begin discussions on expansion, John Neuffer, a vice president at the Information Technology Industry Council, told us May 23. "So the train is moving forward," he said.
Russia export controls and sanctions
The use of export controls and sanctions on Russia has surged since the country's invasion of Crimea in 2014, and especially its invasion of Ukraine in in February 2022. Similar export controls and sanctions have been imposed by U.S. allies, including the EU, U.K. and Japan. The following is a listing of recent articles in Export Compliance Daily on export controls and sanctions imposed on Russia:
The International Trade Administration issued the preliminary results of its administrative review of the Suspension Agreement on hot-rolled flat-rolled carbon-quality steel products from Russia (A-821-809), which said the Agreement is no longer meeting its statutory requirements because Russian exports of subject merchandise are undercutting U.S. prices. These preliminary results are not in effect. If they do not change in the final results, and no agreement is reached with Russia to modify the Agreement, the ITA will terminate the Agreement and suspend liquidation for all entries of subject merchandise entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption on or after 90 days prior to the date of termination of the Agreement.
The International Trade Commission’s decision to revoke the antidumping duty order on magnesium metal from Russia was upheld by the Court of International Trade. Plaintiff US Magnesium LLC challenged the ITC’s negative injury determination in its 2010 sunset review of the AD order with respect to its decision not to conduct its injury determination based on the combined (“cumulated”) imports of magnesium from Russia and China, as well as its determination to revoke the AD order with respect to Russia. CIT said the ITC’s decision not to combine Russian and Chinese imports, as well as its decision to revoke the AD order, were both supported by substantial evidence, including, among other things, the decline of the Russian magnesium industry and the different uses for Russian and Chinese magnesium.
Leaders of four ASEAN countries reaffirmed the group's commitment to form the ASEAN Economic Community as scheduled in 2015, during the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok May 31. Yingluck Shinawatra, prime minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, said non-physical infrastructures must be addressed, such as laws and regulations that will ensure free cross-border movements of people and goods.
EU competitiveness ministers are expected to green-light a proposal May 30 repealing Council regulation (EC) No 1342/2007 on administering certain restrictions on imports of certain steel products from the Russian Federation. The matter involves a Dec. 1, 1997, partnership and cooperation agreement (PCA) establishing a partnership between the European Communities and their member countries on one side and the Russian Federation, said a European Parliament position statement, adopted May 10. Under the PCA, the EU and Russia signed a 2007 pact on trade in certain steel products that stipulated that if Russia acceded to the WTO before the agreement expired, the agreement would be terminated and quantitative limits abolished as of the date of accession. Parliament approved the deal May 10, and the Competitiveness Council is set to adopt the legislative position without discussion, it said in a May 15 information note.
On May 24, 2012, the Foreign Agricultural Service issued the following GAIN reports:
The Food Safety and Inspection Service revised export requirements and plant lists for the following countries for the week of May 18 through May 25, 2012:
Teams of American and European negotiators are working to examine a wide range of possibilities to boost U.S.-EU trade, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a speech May 22 to the London School of Economics. He said they include: eliminating conventional barriers to trade in goods, such as tariffs and tariff-rate quotas; reducing barriers to trade in services, and to transatlantic investment; promoting regulatory approaches that facilitate trade; reducing, eliminating, or preventing in the first place behind-the-border barriers to trade in all categories; and developing rules and principles on other global issues that are of common concern. "We have agreed to be both ambitious and realistic as we establish our negotiating parameters and goals," Kirk said.
There was better-than-expected progress on the latest round of talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. The 12th-round meeting of Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S. and Vietnam concluded May 16 in Dallas. Negotiators said the round further narrowed differences in the text and the teams can now see a clear path forward toward conclusion of most of the more than 20 chapters of the agreement, the USTR office said, as a handful of TPP negotiating groups continue to meet in Texas for the remainder of the week.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Web site as of May 15, 2012, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching on the listed CBP message number at http://addcvd.cbp.gov. (CBP occasionally adds backdated messages without otherwise indicating which message was added. ITT will include a message date in parentheses in such cases.)