Two Democrats and two Republicans in the Senate asked the administration to press Canada on changing how it administers tariff rate quotas for U.S. dairy exports as it approaches a renegotiation.
Canada opened a dispute at the World Trade Organization on March 5 to challenge the new U.S.-imposed 25% tariff on all non-energy goods and 10% tariff on energy goods from Canada, claiming that the measure violates the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade "as well as the WTO's Trade Facilitation Agreement." Canada said that the U.S. measures "appear to be inconsistent with the United States' obligations" under GATT and TFA provisions.
Jamieson Greer, the former chief of staff to the U.S. trade representative during the first Trump administration, was confirmed by the Senate on Feb. 26, with a 56-43 vote. Five Democrats supported him, including both Michigan senators and Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and John Hickenlooper of Colorado. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted no.
After losing a USMCA dispute panel ruling on its measures to phase out genetically modified corn and crops treated with the herbicide glyphosate, Mexico announced this week it is repealing the decrees that addressed those issues.
The Trump administration should look to negotiate new types of economic and trade deals that are centered on economic security issues, such as export controls and investment screening measures, the Center for a New American Security said in a new report this week. The think tank also called on President Donald Trump to create an economic security strategy, which should outline avenues to strengthen export control enforcement.
After a panel report found Mexico's plans to replace GMO corn over time in industrial food and animal feed -- and its ban on genetically modified white corn -- violate its USMCA commitments, the Mexican government said it will honor the result.
A dispute panel ruled that Mexico's ban on genetically modified white corn, along with its intention to phase out GMO yellow corn for industrial foods and animal feed, violate the NAFTA successor agreement, because they "are not based on relevant international standards, guidelines or recommendations, or on an assessment, as appropriate to the circumstances, of the risk to human, animal, or plant life or health," and Mexico didn't conduct its own documented risk assessment, or base the decree on science.
The former chief of staff to then-U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been chosen for USTR in Donald Trump's second administration.
New Zealand last week launched mandatory negotiations with Canada under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership to challenge Canada’s dairy tariff rate quotas, saying they are unfairly restricting New Zealand exporters. The country said a panel of arbitrators ruled in favor of New Zealand in September 2023, finding Canada breached its CPTPP obligations “by blocking New Zealand dairy access.” Since then, Canada “failed to comply with the ruling,” New Zealand said.
Canada is studying several policy and legislative options to strengthen its forced labor enforcement, including one that could establish new import traceability requirements for certain goods and another that could require importers to pay all fees associated with imports detained for forced labor.