Chern-Chyi Chen, deputy representative for trade and economic affairs for Taiwan in Washington, said "witnessing a trade paradigm shift" has been very interesting. Taiwan, the 11th-largest trading partner with the U.S., is accelerating its investment outside of China as the U.S.-China trade conflict builds, according to Rupert Hammond-Chambers, the president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council. The two were guests at a Heritage Foundation event on U.S. trade with Taiwan on Nov. 13. The event was timed to a new report on Taiwan from Heritage researcher Riley Walters.
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.
Investors were worried about the fate of NAFTA and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement when they were "works in progress," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Nov. 13. "And I think people in general think they turned out very, very well." So, Ross told an interviewer at Yahoo Finance's All Markets Summit, investors shouldn't lose confidence in the president's trade policy with China "because they're afraid of the unknown." He noted that Chinese negotiators are probably visiting Washington ahead of the G-20 summit, when the U.S. and Chinese presidents will talk about trade. But he cautioned that the problems with China are structural, and so won't easily be solved.
The U.S. Trade Representative's delegation in Geneva has challenged how India reports its agriculture subsidies on cotton, the agency announced Nov. 13. This followed similar action the U.S. took at the World Trade Organization in May on Indian subsidies for wheat and rice. At issue is what quantity of production is used by India to calculate market price supports, as well as a lack of information on the total value of production. "Based on U.S. calculations, it appears that India has substantially underreported its market price support for cotton. When calculated according to WTO Agreement on Agriculture methodology, India’s market price support for cotton far exceeded its allowable levels of trade distorting domestic support," the announcement said. The WTO Committee on Agriculture will discuss this claim at its next meeting Nov. 26-27.
Steve Bannon, a populist strategist ousted from the White House last year, said there's no easy solution to the China-U.S. trade war, which he called "an economic war" during an interview at Yahoo Finance's All Markets Summit. Bannon, speaking Nov. 13, said working people's view that America is in decline -- and that elites are comfortable with that -- is one of the reasons Donald Trump was elected president. "There's a direct link between factories that went to China and the jobs that went with them, directly linked to opioid addiction" levels, Bannon said, citing the memoir Hillbilly Elegy. "This is about dignity and self-worth of our working class base."
Peter Navarro, the biggest China hawk in the administration, said it will be tough for the U.S. to find the "Art of the Deal" with China, speaking at a Nov. 9 event in Washington. "How do you deal with somebody if they won't even acknowledge your concern? I mean, it's Alice in Wonderland," he said, recalling how, at a meeting in Beijing in May, Chinese officials denied they engage in cybertheft or require technology transfers. "Even if you take 25 of those off," he said, referring to a lengthy list he's compiled of ways that China puts the thumb on the scale for its firms, "you still have 35 left, and that would probably be enough to hurt us. This is not about buying more U.S. soybeans or more coal. This is structural."
While the next chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is clear -- Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass. -- the leadership of the Senate Finance Committee and the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee is up in the air. Neal, who represents a slice of Western Massachusetts that has suffered from deindustrialization, voted against NAFTA, but for giving China permanent most favored nation status. He also voted no on the most recent fast-track renewal in 2015.
NEW YORK -- Clients are asking "how can I make a bad situation better," said Mary Jo Muoio, senior vice president for trade services for Geodis, a customs broker firm. Muoio, who was speaking on a panel on "Tackling the Trade War: Solutions for Companies Across the Supply Chain" at the Apparel Importers Trade and Transportation Conference, said some of those client questions and plans are not sophisticated. She quoted one client who asked: "If I send it to Taiwan and label it Taiwan, does it get me out of the 301?" She quipped, "Well, it gets you in jail."
NEW YORK -- The assistant U.S. trade representative for textiles acknowledged there are changes to NAFTA "you may not like," before he pitched changes to the pact that could be beneficial for the garment industry. Bill Jackson, who noted that textiles is the only sector to have a dedicated office at USTR, was speaking Nov. 7 at the Apparel Importers Trade and Transportation Conference. United States Fashion Industry Association President Julia Hughes, who was interviewing Jackson, agreed that the rewrite is "a mixed bag" for her industry.
NEW YORK -- The Section 301 tariffs largely have spared apparel, but U.S.-China Business Council Vice President Erin Ennis told industry representatives that tariffs on all remaining Chinese goods could follow. "You should hope for the best, but, as businesses, you should be planning for the worst on that front," she said. "We're not at the end of this yet." Ennis was speaking at the Apparel Importers Trade and Transportation Conference Nov. 7.
Fourteen trade groups wrote to the U.S. trade representative asking him to strip language in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that suggests the de minimis level could be lowered to be closer to the NAFTA region trading partners' levels. The letter, sent Nov. 6, was initiated by the National Foreign Trade Council, and notes that Congress unilaterally raised the de minimis level in 2016 because "reduced logistics costs improve the bottom line of American small businesses across industries who import low value components for assembly and value-added manufacturing operations." It helps firms that import samples, the letter said, and benefits "importers and logistics firms by reducing the time and cost to process millions of shipments and shaving a half-a-day or more from clearing each shipment."