The EU's top trade official, Valdis Dombrovskis, said EU and U.S. negotiators haven't given up on their Oct. 31 deadline to address both non-market overcapacity in steel and aluminum and ways to privilege trade in cleaner metals.
The EU has received assurances that Beijing will grant export licenses for shipments of gallium and germanium to European businesses despite the restrictions China placed on exports of the two metals in August (see 2307050018), European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said this week. Dombrovskis also said the bloc is looking to sanction additional Chinese firms that may be skirting restrictions against Russia and is hoping to ensure its upcoming supply chain due diligence regulations don’t impose excessive compliance burdens on EU companies.
On a panel on critical minerals ally-shoring, panelists representing the perspective of Latin America, the U.S., the EU and, to some degree, China, agreed that the current race to lock down supplies of the raw materials needed for advanced batteries, wind turbines and computer chips is one where every man is out for himself, and resource-rich countries in the Global South are exploited.
Two members of the House of Representatives asked the House Ways and Means Committee to renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, and several others also advocated for trade policies on the day that the committee welcomed other members to advocate for their priorities.
Market and geopolitical risk analysts said everything has gone wrong, undermining supply chain reliability over the last several years, and businesses are creating redundancy but are still anxious about the additional costs that entails.
Trade ministers from the G-20 nations reaffirmed the role of the World Trade Organization, pledged to promote resilient global value chains and said they will increase transparency of sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade within the WTO.
Compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act has "significantly impacted" U.S. fashion companies' "sourcing practices," and many importers are diversifying away from China and other countries in Asia to mitigate supply chain risks, the U.S. Fashion Industry Association said in its annual survey of industry executives released July 31. Nearly 80% percent of survey respondents said they plan to reduce apparel sourcing from China over the next two years, with a record high 15% planning to “strongly decrease” sourcing from the country.
House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., said he wants U.S. companies that source from or have operations in China to "take off the golden blindfolds, and assess the risk." Gallagher and the committee's ranking member, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., were speaking at an event hosted by Punchbowl News on July 20.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said no decision has been made yet on whether there will be an executive order limiting outbound investment in China. "It's still something being discussed in the administration and the timing of it is not yet certain," she said on "Face the Nation" from China, before she returned from a diplomatic visit there. "But I wanted to explain to my Chinese counterparts that if we go forward with this executive order, that we will do so in a transparent and narrowly targeted way." She said what's being considered is only for "very narrow high technology areas," and should not significantly impact overall investment in China.
Japan's senior deputy minister for foreign affairs, who was responsible for preparing for the G-7 summit in Hiroshima (see 2305220008), told Center for Strategic and International Studies scholars that Japan had two goals for the summit -- outreach to the Global South and supporting a "free and open international order based on the rule of law."