President Donald Trump has “no deadline” for striking a trade deal with China, he told reporters Dec. 3 during a meeting in London. “I like the idea of waiting until after the election for the China deal,” he said. The Chinese “want to make a deal now, and we’ll see whether or not the deal’s going to be right,” he said. “It’s got to be right.” A trade agreement is “dependent on one thing -- do I want to make it?” Trump said. “We’re doing very well with China right now. We can do even better with the flick of a pen.” China didn’t immediately comment. Extending the U.S.-China trade war for another year past the 2020 election would be a “bad deal” for “every segment of the economy,” said David French, senior vice president-government relations at the National Retail Federation. “We want and need to see a deal as soon as possible,” said French. Four rounds of Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods at 15 percent and higher “continue to hurt U.S. businesses, workers and consumers and are a substantial drag on the U.S. economy,” he said.
The top negotiator for Mexico on the new NAFTA told reporters in Canada on Nov. 29, “I think we are almost there.” Jesus Seade, who was in Canada meeting with his counterparts, had been in Washington the day before Thanksgiving to talk to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about whether Mexico could live with the edits to the new NAFTA the Democrats had asked for. Seade told reporters that the edits might be finalized “sometime in the next week,” but if not then, he said he hopes it will be before Congress leaves town for the Christmas holiday. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a speech on the Senate floor Dec. 2 that “if a deal cannot be reached by the end of this week, I do not see how USMCA can be ratified in 2019. As it is, the window of opportunity for 2019 is extremely tight.”
Easing tariffs on U.S. pork exports to China would significantly help both the U.S. agricultural economy and the U.S.’s trade deficit with China, the National Pork Producers Council said in a Nov. 26 press release. An analysis by the NPPC and Iowa State University shows U.S. pork sales would generate more than $24 billion in sales over the next 10 years if tariffs on imports to China were eliminated. “Were it not for China’s tariffs that are severely limiting access to American goods and other restrictions, including customs clearance delays, U.S. pork could be an economic powerhouse, creating thousands of new jobs, expanding sales and dramatically slashing our nation’s trade deficit,” Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes said in a statement.
Japan, China and South Korea will hold the 16th round of trade negotiations this week in Seoul, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Nov. 26. The negotiations will feature a “broad discussion” on market access and rules, specifically surrounding e-commerce and intellectual property, Japan said.
The European Union-Singapore free trade deal offers wide-ranging benefits for companies, although some businesses may only be aware of the deal’s reduced and eliminated tariffs, according to a Nov. 21 alert from PricewaterhouseCoopers. While the agreement (see 1911080069) does present “significant tariff reduction,” it also removed a range of non-tariff barriers; offers greater market access in electronics, environmental and computing sectors; and provides greater intellectual property protection and access to government contracts.
The elimination of tariffs is an important condition for the U.S. and China to reach an agreement, said China Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng during a press conference Nov. 14, according to an unofficial translation of a transcript. If a first phase agreement is reached between the two countries, the extent of the tariff cancellation should fully reflect the magnitude of the deal, Gao said. The two sides are discussing this in depth, and China is willing to work together with the U.S. to resolve each other’s core concerns on the basis of equality and mutual respect, he said.
President Donald Trump, in a press conference with the president of Turkey on Nov. 13, said trade with Turkey “could be many times larger" than it is now, and that his administration has the goal of roughly quadrupling the volume of trade between the two countries, which would be $100 billion in two-way trade. According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, U.S. goods exported to Turkey were valued at $10.2 billion, while goods imported totaled $10.3 billion.
NEW YORK -- The U.S. and China are intertwined, and revealing how deeply that is true is the silver lining of the trade war, according to Dr. Huiyao Wang, president for Center for China and Globalization, a Chinese think tank. Wang said the West mischaracterizes forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft and favoritism toward Chinese companies within China. He said that the American Chamber of Commerce in China is pleased about how the new IP protection law is going to be implemented, and he asked if forced technology transfer is such a burden, why don't you hear companies publicly complaining about it.
The U.S. will soon start discussions with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations about a possible connection between ASEAN's customs filing platform with the U.S. platform, the State Department said in a Nov. 3 fact sheet about "Expanding the Enduring Partnership" with ASEAN. "The United States and the ASEAN Secretariat announced the opening of negotiations to link the ASEAN 'Single Window' with the U.S. Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) System, which governs all trade in goods entering the United States," State said. "Making this link will further facilitate $272 billion in two-way trade in goods between the United States and ASEAN."
NEW YORK -- A former WTO appellate body panelist criticized the administration's trade policies as chaotic and ineffective and former U.S. Trade Representative General Counsel Stephen Vaughn defended them, while a top WTO official tried to see the good in both arguments. They were all speaking on the state of world trade at an International Trade Symposium co-sponsored by Finastra and The Economist on Nov. 6.