The U.S. and Japan signed a deal to open Japanese market access to more than $7 billion worth of U.S. agricultural exports, the White House said Sept. 25. The deal -- announced after President Donald Trump and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met at the United Nations General Assembly in New York -- is an initial agreement as the two sides continue negotiating a comprehensive trade deal “in the months ahead,” the White House said.
Ian Cohen
Ian Cohen, Deputy Managing Editor, is a reporter with Export Compliance Daily and its sister publications International Trade Today and Trade Law Daily, where he covers export controls, sanctions and international trade issues. He previously worked as a local government reporter in South Florida. Ian graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Florida in 2017 and lives in Washington, D.C. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2019.
CBP is preparing for the possibility of another immigration surge at the southern border similar to the one that stretched the agency’s customs resources earlier this year, said Robert Perez, CBP’s deputy commissioner. Perez, speaking at a National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference on Sept. 23, highlighted CBP’s response efforts to the initial surge but said the crisis led to “longer wait times” for cargo clearance and diverted a large number of the agency’s resources and officers.
Legislative discussions continue for how to shape legislation in order to regain control of trade policy from the Trump administration as the legislative branch is further pushed to the sidelines, a former senior U.S. trade negotiator said. Barbara Weisel, former assistant U.S. trade representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said Congress is beginning to question how it can retake its constitutionally granted powers over trade, which have been overtaken by the Trump administration and its preference for bilateral negotiations. “One has to believe there are many members of Congress now who are debating and quietly discussing how they are going to adjust this issue,” Weisel said during a Sept. 17 event at the Brookings Institution in Washington, focused on the "America First" trade policy with regard to Japan and Taiwan. “And I think it’s about time.”
A recently reached U.S.-Japan free trade deal makes up 90 percent of the losses farmers experienced because the U.S. dropped out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, during a Sept. 17 call with reporters. "I haven’t seen anything on paper, but according to [the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative], it puts us on this level playing field with our trading partners," he said.
The trade staff of the House Ways and Means Committee told Democrats who are anxious for a ratification vote on the new NAFTA that the rewrite "will be ready for a vote as soon as it is ready; no sooner, and also no later," in a memo that was structured as an imagined dialogue between a member who wants a vote and the committee chairman, who has a big say on when that vote happens.
The U.S. and Japan agreed to a trade deal that will see Japan buy more U.S. agricultural goods, including beef, pork, dairy and corn, the countries announced during the G-7 summit in France.
CHICAGO -- CBP plans to present its 21st Century Customs Framework to senior leadership for approval in August and introduce policy changes within the next year, a CBP official said at the agency’s Trade Symposium on July 23. CBP is finalizing a “fairly detailed roadmap” for the framework and expects it to make “measurable, fundamental changes,” Brandon Lord, CBP’s deputy executive director for trade, policy and programs, said during the conference. Since the agency announced the framework with a request for public comments in December (see 1812200003), Lord said CBP has tried to pinpoint “substantive changes” the agency can make through policy updates. CBP has focused on three issues from the public comments, he said: “streamlining the entry process,” “seamless information sharing” and creating a “robust framework for the e-commerce environment.”
CHICAGO -- The immigration crisis at the U.S.’s southwestern border is stretching CBP’s resources, slowing customs procedures and impacting trade enforcement, CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said, speaking at the agency’s Trade Symposium in Chicago on July 23. At one point, the crisis caused CBP’s cargo processing time to nearly quadruple, Morgan said. “We know the criticality of this. We understand that this is a big deal,” he said. “But at the same time, we’re dealing with an unprecedented humanitarian national security crisis at the southwestern border.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce expects the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to pass before Congress’ August recess, two Chamber of Commerce officials said, saying Democrats’ issues with the bill are “bridgeable.” “We do think that we can see USMCA move forward before the August break,” said John Murphy, the Chamber’s senior vice president for international policy. “We want to get on with it. We need the certainty that USMCA will provide.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was told by the administration that no trade deal with China will be reached this week, potentially paving the way for President Donald Trump to increase tariffs by May 10. Pelosi, interviewed May 8 during a Washington Post Live webcast, said she was told by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on May 6 that China planned to “take a walk” from any agreement proposed this week. A rejected deal from China could result in increased tariffs on Chinese goods; the tariffs already are set to rise from 10 percent to 25 percent on May 10 (see 1905050001). When asked if she is confident there is any way a deal could get done this week, Pelosi said no. “Let me just say that, first of all, I never believed the Chinese were going to honor what they said they were going to do,” she said.