The Trump administration is continuing the President’s Export Council until Sept. 30, 2021, the White House said Sept. 27. The council, a federal advisory committee -- which usually meets twice a year, according to the Federal Advisory Committee database -- did not meet in fiscal year 2018.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Russian people, entities and other actors for trying to influence the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, Treasury said in a Sept. 30 press release. The sanctions also increase pressure on Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a previously designated Russian businessman, by sanctioning three of his planes, a yacht and employees of the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which Prigozhin funds, Treasury said.
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton said U.S. sanctions are not being enforced effectively and criticized what he said is a lack of U.S. involvement in the Japan-South Korea trade dispute.
The next few months include a "rapid-fire succession of trade and tech war deadlines" that poses a high level of uncertainty for the fight between the U.S. and China, Bank of America economists Ethan Harris and Alexander Lin said in a Sept. 30 research report. Of those deadlines, what happens with Huawei's temporary general license is likely the most important unknown, they said. Huawei on Nov. 17 will be cut off from all U.S. exports, but "we expect an 'extend and pretend' scenario where Huawei remains on the 'entity list' but is allowed to keep buying US inputs."
Revenue declined 23 percent in Micron Technology’s fiscal year 2019 ended Aug. 29, but senior executives on a fiscal Q4 call Sept. 26 wouldn’t break out how much of the decrease was attributable to the disruption in shipments to Huawei. Revenue in Q4 was down 42 percent from a year earlier, but up 2 percent sequentially, exceeding Micron’s previous guidance on better-than-expected demand in the quarter, the company said. “In recent months, we have seen increased demand from customers headquartered in mainland China,” CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said. Some customers “could be making strategic decisions to build higher levels of inventory in the face of increased trade tensions between the U.S. and China,” he said. The components Micron sells have heavy exposure in the first three rounds of Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods. President Donald Trump announced in August he would hike those tariffs Oct. 1.
The European Union is making adjustments to its safeguards on steel products implemented in July 2018 in response to U.S. Section 232 tariffs, the European Commission said in a Sept. 27 press release.
U.S. exporters say they are increasingly losing market share in China to European and Japanese companies as the trade war drags on, panelists said during a discussion at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event on Sept. 25. Some U.S. companies are also losing out on Chinese license approvals as foreign competitors get to skip the line, one trade lawyer said.
A top South Korean official asked a State Department official to continue to help with South Korea’s ongoing trade dispute with Japan, saying during the United Nations General Assembly that the U.S. should “continue to play a role” in the negotiations.
China’s Foreign Ministry criticized the passage of a bill in a House committee that could change Hong Kong’s special status in customs and export controls. The bill, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (see 1909250053), would also require the Trump administration to assess whether Hong Kong is “adequately” enforcing U.S. export control and sanctions regulations.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, wants to ratify NAFTA 2.0, and believes the House will vote to do so in November or December. But in a speech Sept. 26 at the American Security Project, he told Mexican diplomats in the audience that they need to add more money to their labor budget.