Foreign investment lawyers aren’t expecting a big change in how the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. operates under a second Trump administration, although a new round of tariffs against China and the continued easing of export restrictions among close U.S. allies could change the investment landscape and the number of filings submitted to CFIUS.
American exporters, especially in the agricultural industry, should expect to face retaliatory duties when selling to a range of U.S. trading partners if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his promise to sharply increase tariffs when he takes office next year (see 2408140058), lawyers and advisers said this week.
European collaboration with the U.S. on trade-related policies and other issues likely will become more difficult when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House in January, a former Swedish government official said Nov. 7.
Former President Donald Trump is projected to win reelection and Republicans took back control of the Senate, setting up a possible repeat of the first Trump-led government that frequently used export controls to counter China and didn’t hesitate to levy threats at traditional U.S. trading partners.
Maros Sefcovic of Slovakia, the EU’s candidate for trade and economic security commissioner, said this week he would “double down” on defending European industry against “increasingly widespread” unfair practices.
Both a potential Kamala Harris and a potential Donald Trump administration are likely to continue the U.S. government’s increasing focus on sanctions and export control enforcement, even if their approaches to specific trade measures may differ, such as tariffs against China or sanctions against Russia, said Adam Smith, a Gibson Dunn lawyer.
The EU could soon see a sharp uptick in its use of defensive trade policy tools, especially if Donald Trump is elected the next U.S. president and follows through with his promise of a new global tariff (see 2409110015), at least one panelist said during a roundtable discussion on EU competitiveness.
Nazak Nikakhtar, acting head of the Bureau of Industry and Security during the Trump administration, blamed the deep state for a lack of urgency in confronting China, during a podcast interview with China Talk. Nikakhtar did not use that term, but said that it was hard for Commerce Department career officials to shift their thinking from promoting exports of goods to restricting exports or investment. Nikakhtar was previously a civil servant herself, working on antidumping and countervailing duty cases and negotiations with China.
The Canadian press noted that Canada is working to convince officials that might serve in a future Trump administration to spare Canadian goods from a global 10% tariff, but former U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer, who recently traveled to Canada, has said Canada won't necessarily be exempted.
When Bloomberg asked former President Donald Trump if he has thought about easing or eliminating sanctions on Russia as part of a peace settlement in Ukraine if he is reelected, the Republican nominee replied, "Yeah. So what we’re doing with sanctions is we’re forcing everyone away from us. So I don’t love sanctions. I found them very useful with Iran, but I didn’t even need sanctions with Iran so much. I told China that and Russia is in a similar position."