The Commerce Department’s recently announced preliminary findings of circumvention for Southeast Asian solar imports (see 2212020064) were “in line if not slightly positive vs. consensus” with expectations, BofA Global Research said in a report released Dec. 2. Most companies are eligible for antidumping and countervailing duty rates “well below” the high China-wide rate for solar cells, and companies that were found not to be circumventing AD/CVD account for substantial capacity, BofA said. “Hanwha and Jinko retain 2.3 / 7.1GW of module capacity in Malaysia, Boviet retains 1.5GW in Vietnam, and New East holds 900MW capacity in Cambodia. Critically, this in theory provides a very strong bridge on module supply through to 2024 noting Jinko and JA have further build out of wafer in SE Asia which would also be outside the scope. Inclusive of 10GW of capacity from [First Solar], we see several viable options for US supply constraints to ease,” the report said.
More than 250 importers, large and small, and 27 trade associations asked Congress to renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program this month, and if that can't be done, to pass a bill that would refund tariffs paid on GSP-eligible imports that entered between Jan. 1, 2021, and Aug. 31, 2022. The letter, sent Nov. 30, notes that tariffs that have been paid while the program has been expired is the highest amount ever, at more than $2 billion, and if GSP is not renewed, it will be the first time it was gone for a full two years. The last time GSP expired, at the end of 2017, it was less than four months before it returned; when it expired in 2013, it was gone almost two years (see 13080110).
The Sierra Club and the Trade Justice Fund say that the EU and the U.S. should agree on a Climate Peace Cause, because otherwise, trade disputes could slow the progress of reducing carbon emissions. The two groups, in a white paper published Dec. 1, noted that Japan and the EU successfully challenged a Canadian program that supported renewable energy, and the U.S. and India each successfully challenged buy local rules for solar energy. "Trade scholars are already questioning the trade legality of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and ... [t]he European Union and South Korea, among other countries, have threatened a trade case against the tax credit for electric vehicles and other measures included in the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act," the paper said.
Congress needs to act to help prevent a looming major rail strike that could disrupt freight movement and back up supply chains, more than 400 trade associations said in a Nov. 28 letter to congressional leadership. The letter, signed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, the Agriculture Transportation Coalition and others, said the “uncertainty” surrounding a potential rail disruption “has created enormous anxiety” in the industry.
Companies based in China’s Xinjiang province recently signed deals with companies located elsewhere in China to export Xinjiang-origin food products that are made with forced labor, said Kharon, a risk data and risk management software company, in an alert Nov. 21. Chinese news reports coming out of an expo held in Xinjiang’s capital in September indicate Xinjiang Tianyun Organic Agriculture Co., Ltd., a fish farming and processing business that has participated in so-called “poverty alleviation programs,” an indicator of forced labor, signed an agreement with Dalian Rich Enterprise Group “intended to substantially increase international distribution of Xinjiang salmon,” Kharon said.
National Retail Federation CEO Matthew Shay said Congress needs to "intervene immediately to avoid a rail strike and a catastrophic shutdown of the freight rail system." His statement was released Nov. 21, after news that a fourth union has rejected a tentative agreement between the railroads and 12 unions that work for them. “American businesses and families are already facing increased prices due to persistent inflation, and a rail strike will create greater inflationary pressures and will threaten business resiliency," he said. There is a cooling off period that ends Dec. 8, and Shay said Congress must step in before then.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says "it’s critical that legislation to renew the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB) and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) not get lost in the shuffle" during the lame duck session, as Congress tries to find a way to pass funding for the federal government.
The National Milk Producers Federation told the chairmen and ranking Republicans on the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees that they do not support an extension of tariff waivers on either imported baby formula or the inputs to make formula.
Alba Wheels Up recently acquired San Francisco-based customs brokerage KSI, the company said in a news release. “One of the largest independent customs brokers in the Bay Area with strength in customs clearances for the biotech and semiconductor industries,” KSI’s headquarters in San Francisco will now become Alba’s fifth office, alongside existing offices in Los Angeles, Houston, Jersey City and Valley Stream, New York, Alba said.
If the U.S. position on calculating the regional content of automobiles prevails in a USMCA state-to-state dispute, Baker McKenzie associate Eunkyung Kim Shin predicted, companies would be likely to import more parts used to assemble the automobiles. Shin, who spoke at a Baker McKenzie webinar Nov. 15, said that when the entire value of a part counts toward the vehicle regional content threshold once that part meets its own rule of origin, it makes sense to build the part in Mexico, the U.S. or Canada. But if the non-local content of those parts is not disregarded when doing vehicle-level calculations, it might be cheaper just to import the parts from a lower-cost country, she said.