Canada and Mexico talked about the panel ruling on auto rules of origin -- a decision that went their way but that the U.S. has chosen not to implement -- and Canada brought up the issue with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai as well, according to readouts from Mexico and Canada about the bilateral meetings July 6 ahead of the official Free Trade Commission meeting in Cancun, Mexico.
Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., are asking their colleagues to vote to encourage the administration to negotiate with other countries to lower or eliminate tariffs on pharmaceutical products and medical devices, and the U.S. would do the same. Their bill authorizes these sorts of changes.
The World Trade Organization is responsible for too many agreements, leading to fracturing coalitions and insufficient oversight, University of Arizona law professor Bashar Malkawi said in an International Economic Law and Policy Blog guest post. For the trade body to "survive as a meaningful entity," member nations should be willing to largely ditch the "consensus style of negotiations and agreements" and embrace a system operating largely under majority or super-majority votes, Malkawi suggested.
The European Council has approved a free trade agreement with New Zealand, with an expectation it will be signed "later on," the council said June 27. The FTA would "liberalise and facilitate trade and investment, as well as promote a closer economic relationship," the council said, noting bilateral trade is expected to rise 30% after the FTA is signed. The deal would eliminate all tariffs on "key EU exports to New Zealand such as pigmeat, wine and sparkling wine, chocolate, sugar confectionary and biscuits," enshrining nondiscriminatory treatment for EU and New Zealand investors, boosting access for government procurement contracts and preempting data localization requirements, the council said. The council said it will request the European Parliament "consent to the conclusion" of the agreement, which also requires New Zealand's ratification.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she would block all exports of sensitive technology to China and put in place new investment restrictions on Chinese purchases of agricultural land if she is elected to the White House. Haley, the former U.N. ambassador during the Trump administration who announced her 2024 presidential candidacy earlier this year, said President Joe Biden is “not up to the task” of protecting U.S. national security from risks posed by China and previewed several new policies that could cut off a range of trade between the two countries.
The U.S. and India announced a deal June 22 that will end India’s retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. goods while leaving in place the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs that prompted them, and also end six World Trade Organization disputes brought by both the U.S. and India.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and the committee's top Republican, Mike Crapo of Idaho, asked President Joe Biden to press India on an array of trade irritants for U.S. exporters, including sanitary and phytosanitary restrictions that discriminate against growers, restrictions on biotechnology, and high tariffs on agriculture imports, including "apples, blueberries, cherries, dairy, nuts, pears, chickpeas, lentils, potatoes, and alcoholic beverages."
The U.S. and Mexico have been consulting about U.S. complaints about favoritism to Mexican energy providers for 11 months, with no public movement toward a dispute settlement panel, and Karen Antebi, a former NAFTA negotiator, said she doesn't expect that to change in the next year.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said advocates for free trade agreements who argue that 95% of customers are outside our borders are myopic.
World Trade Organization members agreed to the EU's and India's joint request to give the Dispute Settlement Body more time to consider adopting a panel ruling on India's tariff treatment of information and communications technology products. At the June 15 meeting of the DSB, members agreed to give the DSB until Sept. 19 to adopt the report unless the EU or India appeals the findings or the DSB decides not to adopt the panel ruling, the WTO said. The panel in April found that India's tariffs violated the nation's WTO tariff commitments under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and Article II of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (see 2304170018).