Top trade officials from the U.S. and Colombia talked about digital trade and telecommunications, services, agricultural matters, intellectual property, textiles and apparel, and truck scrappage as they evaluated implementation and best use of the bilateral U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, first signed six years ago. "Officials also agreed to continue to work together to ensure effective implementation of, and compliance with, the trade in goods and services, customs, intellectual property rights, labor, and environment obligations of the Agreement," according to an Aug. 2 press release from the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The U.S. said progress has been made on Colombia's labor issues identified in a 2017 report, but work remains (see 1701120006).
The bilateral meeting between Mexico and the U.S. on July 26 was very productive, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said, saying it was evident that the chief NAFTA negotiator for the next administration and U.S. Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer have a rapport, as they have known each other for years. Jesus Seade, who represents Mexico's president-elect, was the ambassador for Mexico's delegation to the World Trade Organization at the same time Lighthizer worked in Geneva.
Element Electronics wants a slot to appear at public hearings Aug. 20-23 to urge removal of two Harmonized Tariff Schedule classifications of Chinese LCD panel imports (HTS 9013.80.90 and 8529.90.13) from the list of proposed 10 percent Section 301 tariffs, the company said in a filing posted July 26 in docket USTR-2018-0026. Element is “the sole U.S. mass assembler” of LCD TVs, producing about 2.5 million sets a year at its plant in Winnsboro, South Carolina, and is among the local county's top 20 employers, the company said. The Internet Association also wants to testify at the hearings, for the removal of 22 tariff lines “that cover products internet companies use to function on a daily basis,” including “control or adapter units for automatic data processing machines” and other components, it said in a filing posted July 26. Imposing new duties on the 22 tariff lines “would not help to correct China's practices, but would cause disproportionate economic harm to American internet companies,” the association said. July 27 is the deadline for filing requests to appear at the hearings.
It's not easy or cheap relocating semiconductor packaging plants from China to other countries of origin to avoid tariffs, Intel said in comments posted July 25 in docket USTR-2018-0018 opposing the proposed 25 percent Section 301 duties on Chinese semiconductor imports. Many tech interests argued this week for removing Chinese semiconductor imports from the tariffs list because most semiconductors the U.S. imports are made in the U.S., shipped to China for final, low-end assembly, testing and packaging (ATP), and then shipped back to the U.S. (see 1807240045). Imposing those duties would require U.S. semiconductor manufacturers to pay tariffs on their own products, they said. Though U.S. firms can limit or avoid their exposure to Chinese tariffs by moving their ATP plants elsewhere, "no rational U.S. semiconductor company is going to incur the very high costs and other risks raised by relocating an ATP facility in China with an already established ecosystem to a green field site in another country,” Intel said. It estimates it would cost anywhere from $650 million to $875 million to move an ATP plant out of China, “depending on its size and where it would be relocated,” it said.
At the same time that U.S. trade policy is disrupting sales to our biggest trading partners -- Canada, China, the European Union, Japan and Mexico -- the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is highlighting talks with tiny New Zealand. USTR announced on July 23 that the two countries concluded two days of talks on July 20 under the Trade Investment and Framework Agreement. The U.S. pressed New Zealand for improvements in honoring intellectual property. The two countries "agreed to a program of expanded cooperation on issues of shared interest, including working together to address trade barriers in third-country markets and exchanging information about unfair trade practices," the release said. It marked the second time New Zealand officials and top USTR officials have met this summer (see 1706160026)
Mexico's chief NAFTA negotiator will meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on July 26, but Canada's foreign minister will not attend. Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo told reporters in Mexico about the trip to Washington. The administration has been telling lawmakers that its ambition is to close a deal with Mexico first, and then bring Canada to the table. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters July 18: " We see a lot of progress on the conversations with Mexico and if we could make a bilateral deal with them, we're certainly very happy to do that." But Mexico continues to insist it wants a trilateral, not a bilateral, trade agreement.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced country-by-country allocations of fiscal year 2019 in-quota quantity of the tariff-rate quotas for imported raw cane sugar. The TRQs are effective Oct. 1, and imports will be allowed in five tranches. The allocations are the same as for previous years, and are based on historical shipment statistics. FY19 raw cane sugar MTRV (metric tons raw value) allocations are as follows:
With the publication of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s notice in the July 11 Federal Register on procedures for requesting exclusions from Trade Act Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports (see 1807100049), docket USTR-2018-0025 for posting such requests became active in the regulations.gov portal. No requests were posted yet as of International Trade Today's deadline. Exclusion requests are due by Oct. 9, and if granted will apply for a year retroactively to July 6, the notice said. Though Oct. 9 is the deadline for the exclusion requests, international trade lawyers at BakerHostetler are advising "clients to file as soon as possible in anticipation of the large administrative backlog that they expect,” the law firm said.
The Section 301 tariffs product exclusion request process announced last week (see 1807060039) was published in the July 11 Federal Register. No changes were made since the first announcement. Requests are due Oct. 9, and, if granted, will apply from July 6, 2018, and last one year. Exclusions will be granted to all importers of the same product, whether or not the company filed a request.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on July 6 blasted a World Trade Organization ruling against U.S. countervailing duties on supercalendered paper from Canada (see 1807060024), saying Canada should have dropped the case because the Commerce Department will revoke the CV duty order. Lighthizer said Commerce terminated the CV duty order supercalendered paper on July 5, the same day as the WTO decision, at the request of the domestic manufacturer that originally requested the duties. No announcement from Commerce has yet been published.