A former top trade negotiator in Mexico, Juan Carlos Baker Pineda, said he doesn't think the review of the USMCA will be about fine-tuning or technical changes to the trade pact.
The Biden administration announced June 12 that it is taking additional measures to degrade Moscow's war machine, including sanctioning more than 300 entities and people in Russia and other countries and implementing several new export restrictions, including adding five entities and eight addresses to the Entity List.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on May 21 defended the U.S. government's use of sanctions against China, saying the Biden administration resorts to punitive measures only when diplomatic efforts fail to achieve the desired result.
While the U.S. should look to counter China with export controls, tariffs and outbound investment restrictions, it also needs to better incentivize trading partners to diversify their supply chains away from China, the Atlantic Council said this week.
Former top officials in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative during the Trump and Biden administrations said there will be no return to a pre-Trumpian, pro-free trade philosophy, whether Joe Biden wins re-election this fall or Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025.
After October's deadline passed without an agreement between the U.S. and the EU on a global trade deal for steel and aluminum (see 2404040034), talks are still ongoing, the European Commission’s top trade official said during a news conference April 18.
American and Chinese officials discussed tariffs, export controls and market access issues during the April 2-5 first meetings of the U.S.-China Commercial Issues Working Group, both countries said in readouts after the talks.
China’s Ministry of Commerce criticized the Biden administration’s annual report released this week on foreign trade barriers, saying it “arbitrarily accused China of so-called ‘non-market’ policies and practices and barriers in agricultural products, data policies and other aspects.” A ministry spokesperson told reporters. in response to a question about the report, that “whether a country's trade policy constitutes a barrier should be judged based on whether it violates” World Trade Organization rules, according to an unofficial translation. “The United States should stop making false accusations against other countries, earnestly abide by WTO rules, and jointly safeguard a fair and just international trade order.”
If Donald Trump is elected to a second presidential term, his administration should focus on communicating better with other governments and American companies about upcoming policy decisions, said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative.
Turkey will appeal a World Trade Organization dispute panel finding against its retaliatory duties on certain U.S. goods, the WTO announced Jan. 31. Because the Appellate Body is nonfunctional as the U.S. prevents vacancies from being filled, the appeal goes "into the void." As a result, Turkey's tariffs may stand without further rebuke from the WTO.