The U.S.-Japan mini-trade deal covers just 5 percent of trade between the partners, according to Bruce Hirsh, a principal at Tailwind, but he said the likelihood of further progress is small. Hirsh spoke while at the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones legislative summit on Feb. 11. “Japan wasn’t interested in doing a bilateral deal at all, but they recognized there was only so long they could keep the U.S. at bay,” he said. He said that what Japan gave to the U.S. “fell a little bit short of TPP,” or the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He said beef and pork got TPP parity, but rice got nothing and “dairy got a lot, but not everything.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is complaining that he has not gotten a response from the FDA and CBP to a letter he sent in November asking what the agencies are doing to stop unsafe non-prescription drugs imported from China (see 1911180056). Schumer, who did a press event Feb. 10 in western New York to highlight the issue, noted that his previous press event in November got results locally, but that's not enough. “After we pushed Dollar Tree stores in Manhattan on this issue, they were seen clearing the shelves, but we can’t do this store-by-store, the company needs to do it on its own and the Food and Drug Administration needs to keep the pressure on. The stores across Western New York should not be allowed to continue receiving these questionable or even dangerous over-the-counter drugs, and that’s where Customs and Border Protection need to hold them to account, too,” he said. CBP declined to comment on why it has not responded yet.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said that the Trump administration's argument that the Section 232 report justifying tariffs on imported autos is protected by executive privilege (see 2001210054) is not the last word. Grassley, who was speaking Feb. 11 on a conference call with reporters, said he will keep pushing, though he has not yet contacted the White House or the Commerce Department. He said the next step is to consult with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the top Democrat on the Finance Committee.
Customs duties are estimated at $72 billion in the current fiscal year, and the White House projects that number will climb to $92 billion in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. It projects that duties then will fall to $54 billion the following year.
The recent executive order to strengthen e-commerce enforcement is ambiguous, and how CBP plans to heed the order's call to restrict access to importer of record numbers based on customs and intellectual property rights violations is unclear, Sandler Travis lawyer Paula Connelly said. That's because, currently, domestic importers use their tax IDs to register with CBP, and only companies that have no offices in the U.S. file for an importer of record number.
A panel at the World Trade Organization held that 2015 countervailing duties levied against two Canadian producers of supercalendered paper relied on assumptions that were not justified, and an appellate body panel agreed on Feb. 6.
Union officials, port officials, airport executives and the head of the American Trucking Associations on Feb. 6 asked members of Congress to raise user fees so that they can invest in -- or benefit from -- capital projects that could speed cargo, reduce congestion and make their properties more resilient in the case of natural disasters.
In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump touted a “groundbreaking new agreement with China” without alluding to the work yet to get done in phase two, and said replacing NAFTA was a promise he kept. “Unfair trade is perhaps the single biggest reason that I decided to run for President,” he said, according to a White House transcript. “Six days ago, I replaced NAFTA and signed the brand-new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement into law.” Trump “also promised our citizens that I would impose tariffs to confront China's massive theft of America’s jobs,” he said. “Our strategy has worked. Days ago, we signed the groundbreaking new agreement with China that will defend our workers, protect our intellectual property, bring billions and billions of dollars into our treasury, and open vast new markets for products made and grown right here in the USA.”
Trade professionals should expect more tariffs if President Donald Trump is re-elected, warned a former U.S. trade representative, Bob Zoellick, who was speaking to an audience at the Washington International Trade Association on Feb. 4. In a second Trump term, “expect a China sequel.” He said that the European Union is clearly in his target sights now. “If you're in Brussels or if you’re in the European Commission embassy here,” he said, or if you're a company that does production in Europe, there's “a flashing yellow light and it’s turning orange. One thing we know about Trump, he’s not subtle.You're next.”
The effort to give Congress more say on Section 232 tariffs that has stalled so far is not broad enough to ensure that erratic tariffs are not levied, according to experts who spoke during a Feb. 5 briefing held by Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., a Ways and Means Committee member who has hosted trade sessions three times in the last few months. No other members of the committee responsible for trade attended, but Rep. Jim Cooper, Rep. Donna Shalala and Rep. Jim Costa, all Democrats, listened for at least part of the session, in addition to many Hill staffers and some lawyers, diplomats and industry representatives.