The U.S. trade representative and India's Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal have been talking on the phone, with the goal of trading a return to the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program for better agricultural access, according to two sources following the trade talks. The original industry complaints about market access filed with USTR, requesting that India be expelled from GSP privileges were from the medical device industry and from the dairy industry. A lawyer following the trade talks said that "there's talk -- and this is still a very contentious issue" -- that the pricing controls on medical devices, such as stents, would be changed in India.
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.
Almost half of companies that responded to the U.S.-China Business Council's annual survey on the business climate in China said they have lost sales in China since the trade war began. The most common reason is because of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports to China, according to these 100 multinational firms based in the U.S. Another third said they lost sales because of U.S. tariffs.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will publish a notice in the Federal Register Aug. 30 that says that List 4 products under the Section 301 action will face an additional 15 percent tariff, not 10 percent, as earlier announced. President Donald Trump had tweeted this change four days ago (see 1908230059). The change in the rate does not affect the dates the goods will face the tariff. One group of products, nearly 3,800 8-digit tariff lines, will be taxed starting Sept. 1; consumer electronics largely will wait until Dec. 15.
In six days, a huge swath of imports from China are supposed to have 15 percentage points added to their tariff rates. But with no Federal Register notice yet, CBP cannot implement it. Three days ago, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said that notice would be published "as soon as possible," and the media relations office did not respond to inquiries on Aug. 26 about when it might come. "Our customs men and women are scrambling after a tweet like this to figure out what is policy, how do you advise clients, what do you tell them what the costs are going to be?" said Phil Levy, chief economist for Flexport, a freight forwarder. Because of how Trump phrased the tweet, Flexport employees weren't even sure if the Dec. 15 deadline was still true.
LIz Truss, the secretary of state for international trade in the United Kingdom, said her country is looking forward to "leaving the straitjacket of the EU," and said that a free trade agreement with the U.S. "is the inevitable next step." Truss, who met with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer during her visit to Washington, said they're trying to "get things moving."
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, raised the possibility that he would not be able to broker a compromise between the two approaches on restraining the president's ability to levy tariffs under Section 232. While he said his goal is to have a committee meeting in late September or early October that would take up a "Grassley-Wyden" version, he said if that can't happen, he will bring forward competing bills and allow lots of amendments to shape them.
The majority of companies and a trade group representing metal fabricators oppose the inclusion of brass and other copper alloys on the Airbus retaliation list, but two firms said Germany's dominance in the field is unfair and should be countered. Sixteen players in the metals industry, 14 in the U.S. and two from Europe, testified Aug. 5 at a hearing considering what items should be put on the retaliation list for Europe's subsidies of Airbus launches. The World Trade Organization has ruled that the European Union has not complied with rulings on the subsidies, and that the U.S. is entitled to rebalancing tariffs, but an arbitrator has not yet said how large the tariff action can be (see 1904090031).
Although 10 of the 27 members of the Senate Finance Committee asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to leave de minimis where it is -- including the chairman and ranking member -- the USTR has remained non-committal on whether the implementing bill will change U.S. law for the NAFTA region. As Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., put it in a brief hallway interview at the Capitol before the Senate recessed on Aug. 2, "He hasn’t said one way or the other on that."
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said that while U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer may say he's consulting with the Finance Committee on changing de minimis levels for Canada and Mexico in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, "he hasn't consulted with me." Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was responding to a question from International Trade Today about how the committee could get past the impasse where members repeatedly tell USTR they want de minimis to stay as it is, and he says his staff are consulting with Congress before making a decision.