A survey of large American-headquartered multinationals -- 40% of which capture more than $1 billion in revenue from Chinese operations -- found as one of their top concerns the rising competitiveness of Chinese companies, whether from subsidization or business advances, or a combination of those factors.
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.
The House of Representatives will not be voting on a de minimis restriction as part of its "China week," according to a list of 31 bills published by its leadership Sept. 3. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had said in July that he expected changes to de minimis to be part of the package (see 2407080049).
The U.S. has asked Canada for formal consultations on the 3% digital services tax on revenues of large social media platforms, e-commerce platforms and other companies that target advertising or collect data from Canadian customers.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told China's foreign minister that the U.S. is still concerned about the Chinese government's "unfair trade policies and non-market economic practices," according to a White House readout that focused more on military and law enforcement issues than trade.
Sayari analysts, who say their company crunches 600 million shipment records, say that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act has had more impact than British, German, Swiss, Canadian and French laws aimed at removing human rights abuses from supply chains.
American drone maker Anzu Robotics produces DJI drones, not its own designs, allege the leaders of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
CBP still hasn't been able to properly police fraud in drawback claims, where importers claim drawback funds for merchandise that was never exported, the Government Accountability Office says in a summary of unresolved recommendations for the Department of Homeland Security.
Princeton University professor Aaron Friedberg, who serves on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, says his recent Foreign Affairs essay on addressing Chinese exporting ambitions is an effort to put forward a vision of what "we want the global economy to actually look like," something he says has been missing in the piecemeal efforts of Section 301 tariffs, EU trade defenses and anti-coercion instruments and other reactions to Chinese nonmarket overcapacity.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies "Trade Guys" said that while there is some pressure on Congress to get the Generalized Systems of Preferences benefits program renewed, and restrict de minimis, competing pressures make it unlikely bills will become law this year.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that applying Section 301 tariffs to the contents of packages that previously benefited from de minimis, as proposed in the House (see 2407080049), would increase revenue from tariffs by about $23.5 billion in the 2024-2034 period, but would only require reprogramming of ACE and more money for data storage and ACE maintenance, not new CBP officers. The CBO estimated that improving ACE would cost $3 million, and that CBP would need $2 million annually to maintain the system.