U.S. farmers and producers are lagging behind in agricultural production, impacting trade and exports, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official said. Those same farmers and producers are suffering from “catastrophic” conditions from trade-war tariffs, leading to a potentially problematic increase in federal aid to the U.S. agriculture sector, trade experts said.
President Donald Trump’s order to reduce the number of advisory committees will not affect Commerce’s committees involved with export controls reform, a top Commerce official confirmed. The executive order, issued in June, directed the executive branch's departments and agencies to cut down their advisory boards by one-third by Sept. 30. Speaking during a Sept. 5 Materials Technical Advisory Committee, Rich Ashooh, Commerce’s assistant secretary for export administration, confirmed that several Commerce committees dealing with export controls are safe because they are authorized by (see 1908080033) the Export Control Reform Act.
Wendy Cutler, former acting deputy U.S. trade representative, says that the first bucket of Section 301 tariffs, the ones tailored to Made in China 2025, worked. Even though Cutler is generally not a fan of tariffs, she said, "I think those succeeded … in getting China to negotiate in earnest."
China said it will continue to push for Huawei to be included in any potential U.S.-China trade deal, despite President Donald Trump saying the U.S. does not want to discuss Huawei in negotiations. “China’s position is clear. It is hoped that the U.S. will stop using the national power to suppress the wrong practices of Chinese enterprises in the name of national security,” China’s Ministry of Commerce spokesman said Sept. 5, according to an unofficial translation of a transcript from a press conference.
The planned U.S. and Chinese tariff increases are expected to go forward as scheduled and escalation will continue "until both sides feel enough economic, market and/or political pain to strike a deal," said Bank of America Merrill Lynch global economists Ethan Harris and Aditya Bhave in a Sept. 3 research report. "The recent escalation has opened an almost insurmountable gap in terms of numbers and trust," the economists said. "The only real question is whether the Trump Administration takes the politically dangerous step of imposing tariffs on headline consumer products in December. We think they give it a go: given the supply chain lags it will mainly impact consumer prices after the holidays. All told we expect US tariffs against China to increase from about $63bn in August to more than $115bn by yearend, with Chinese tariffs on US products rising from $20bn to $25bn."
Rep. Ron Kind, co-chairman of the New Democrats' trade task force, said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has done a good job on outreach, and sounding sympathetic to Democrats' complaints about enforceability, labor and other issues they want changed in the NAFTA rewrite. But Kind, who was speaking to reporters on a conference call from the Midwest on Sept. 4, said that "for some reason there's been a reluctance on sharing paper, putting words down" that would change the trade deal to satisfy these requests.
U.S. export controls are confusing, burdensome and often place U.S. companies at a disadvantage compared with foreign competitors, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai said in an Aug. 29 report.
China has put into place part of the retaliatory tariffs it announced Aug. 23 (see 1908230004). The tariffs increased just after midnight on Sept. 1, just as the latest escalation from the U.S. did. The 10 percent increase in tariff rates applies to 270 products, according to an unofficial translation of a China Customs Tariff Commission document.
President Donald Trump told reporters that the negotiating meeting planned for September with the Chinese "is still on." He told reporters on Sept. 2 that "that hasn’t changed. They haven’t changed and we haven’t. We’ll see what happens."
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Aug. 26-30 in case they were missed.