Trade experts -- including the chief negotiator for the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement -- were puzzled by language in a joint statement on the recent Korea tariff deal Nov. 15.
Trade talks with Taiwan have "made a lot of advances," according to a senior administration official, speaking on background with a group of reporters Nov. 13. He had been announcing frameworks with El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Argentina, and was asked about which countries might come next.
The U.S. is eliminating 15% tariffs on Ecuadoran bananas and cocoa, and 10% tariffs on Guatemalan coffee and Argentinian beef, as the three countries have reached framework agreements on reciprocal trade.
House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, introduced a bill that would either require the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to seek a dispute settlement panel over Mexican energy policies, or to make compliance with USMCA in energy a condition of continuing a pact.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., the ranking member of the House Select Committee on China, is asking Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to tell him whether allied governments were consulted before the White House announced that chip exports from Nexperia's China factory would resume, suggesting that the EU was caught flat-footed at the development. Nexperia makes semiconductors used in automobiles.
President Donald Trump told a TV interviewer that there would be "surgical" reductions to reciprocal tariffs, and that he intends to lower tariffs on coffee.
The Coalition for a Prosperous America, whose first CEO joined the Office of Management and Budget as associate director for economic policy (see 2502240005), is calling for replacing USMCA with two bilateral trade agreements. The CPA submitted comments for the USMCA six-year review.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, blocked a vote on a bill that would end tariffs on imported coffee.
There are probably five justices who will find that the reciprocal tariffs were not permissible under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that the president used to impose them, according to Georgetown University Law Center Professor Marty Lederman. Lederman, a senior fellow in the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown, was one of two guests on the weekly Washington International Trade Association podcast that aired Nov. 7.
President Donald Trump continues to argue that the Supreme Court will rule that his emergency tariffs are constitutional, and that the promises of investments from South Korea, Japan and the EU would evaporate without the 15% tariffs he imposed on their exports.