Mara Lee

The "agreed outcomes" to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement were published by the U.S. Trade Representative on Labor Day, and they lay out the language changes put in place to protect the U.S. light truck market from Korean imports for another 20 years. In the original KORUS, agreed to in 2011, the 25 percent tariff on light trucks would last until 2021. In the renegotiated KORUS, they last through 2041. "The publication of the text of the agreed outcomes follows the completion in mid-August of U.S. domestic consultation procedures," said the USTR in a news release. "Korea will now initiate the next step in its own domestic procedures, which is to open for public comment the provisional Korean translations of the outcomes to amend the KORUS Agreement."

President Donald Trump tweeted over the weekend that Canada doesn't need to be in a new NAFTA. "There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal. If we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out. Congress should not interfere w/ these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off..." Trump's leaked boasts about Canada only being able to rejoin NAFTA on his terms may have momentarily derailed negotiations (see 1808310030).

President Donald Trump notified Congress of plans to sign a free trade agreement with Mexico, the White House said. The agreement will also include Canada, “if it is willing.”

The White House on Aug. 29 issued proclamations expanding company-specific exclusions from Section 232 tariffs and quotas on steel and aluminum. The proclamations make exclusions from Section 232 tariffs retroactive to the date the exclusion request was "accepted," rather than the date of posting, by the Commerce Department. They also authorize Commerce to grant exclusions for products from countries constrained by Section 232 quotas on steel and aluminum (currently Argentina for steel and aluminum, and South Korea and Brazil just for steel).

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said her team is optimistic about the progress the U.S. and Canada can make in NAFTA negotiations this week, before the U.S. plans to start the fast-track clock in Congress. "A lot has been accomplished," she said, though she said there's still a "huge amount of work to do this week."

Senators and House members from both parties reacted to the outline of a bilateral deal between Mexico and the U.S. with a variety of views, ranging from celebration to skepticism. The deal aims to steer more auto manufacturing to the U.S. -- and maybe to Canada, if that country comes on board (see 1808270032).

Several trade lawyers see Chapter 19, dairy and steel and aluminum tariffs as the thorniest issues to resolve as Canada is invited to negotiate NAFTA this week. Dan Ujczo, chairman of the U.S.-Canada practice at Dickinson Wright, said that Mexico is considering agreeing to voluntary quotas in steel and aluminum, but that an agreement is "highly unlikely" this week, before the bilateral deal is forwarded to Congress on Aug. 31. "Canada may be able to raise the issue in its discussions; however, progress will be unlikely, given the long list of issues," he wrote in a note to clients. He predicted that the end of aluminum and steel tariffs on NAFTA partners -- and the dropping of their retaliatory tariffs -- will happen during the 90-day review in Congress.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is forming a U.S.-Kenya Trade and Investment Working Group, with the aim of deepening the trade relationship between the two countries. Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Industry, Trade and Cooperatives Peter Munya said that although Kenya has increased its exports to the U.S. through the African Growth and Opportunity Act, "its utilization has been suboptimal. Through implementation of the recently launched National AGOA strategy and action plan, Kenya seeks greater US support in order to optimize available opportunities in the remaining seven years of AGOA." According to USTR, there's $1 billion of trade annually between Kenya and the U.S., and more than 70 percent of Kenyan exports to the U.S. are covered by AGOA preferences.

The U.S. and Mexico appear to be nearing some kind of agreement on NAFTA, Jesus Seade, a trade negotiator who represents Mexico's president-elect, told reporters Aug. 22. "It could be we finish everything between the U.S. and Mexico this week, but it doesn't have to be," he said after meeting with U.S. negotiators. "I always say don't rush it." One time consideration is the Dec. 1 start date for Mexico's incoming president. A deal would likely need to be struck by the end of next week in order to meet Mexican review requirements for something to be finalized before the change in administration.

Manufacturers in foreign-trade zones are being treated worse than other U.S. manufacturers when their products are on Section 301 lists, said National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones President Erik Autor. He said he's attempting to educate the U.S. trade representative on how zones work in an effort to resolve the problem. Autor said that these products are "being erroneously treated as imports from China" if the highest-valued component is from China. He said this mistake is happening because Census is trying, however imperfectly, to measure the amount of imports by country. Because the imports did not go through customs when they entered the U.S., the Census bureau asks about the finished products leaving FTZs, and assigns a country of origin to it by determining what country was responsible for the greatest proportion of its imported components.