Cambodia recently announced changes to its list of prohibited and restricted goods, according to an April 22 alert from KPMG. The changes include additional prohibited goods, a list of goods that require export or import permits, a list of goods that require permits from the exporting country, a list of goods that require international transit permits and further trade guidance, KPMG said. Cambodia added that it may place controls on other items if they present “risks that require urgent measures,” and those controls would be in place for a maximum of six months.
Australia recently announced a US$70 million support program to help agricultural and seafood exporters reach international markets during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service report released April 22. The program will benefit exporters in the country’s red meat, dairy, horticulture and seafood sectors that ship “high-value perishable” products, the USDA said. The program will help exporters ship to China, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates but does not include support for goods shipped by sea, the report said. The list of countries may be expanded.
China is examining ways to speed up purchases of U.S. agricultural goods, including a potential purchase of 10 million tons of U.S. soybeans for state reserves, according to an April 23 Bloomberg report. China, which is hoping to reach its commitments under the phase one trade deal with the U.S., is also considering buying as much as 20 million tons of U.S. corn, the report said, which would surpass the country's corn import quota. Discussions surrounding those purchases are still ongoing, the Bloomberg report said, and some Chinese officials have raised doubts about whether China should be helping U.S.’s agricultural sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on China’s own economy. Despite expectations that the virus will impact China’s ability to purchase U.S. agricultural goods (see 2002120043), the Trump administration said it expects China to begin fulfilling its commitments by this summer (see 2003040029), and has touted the progress made toward those purchases (see 2003240041).
The State Department approved a potential $150 million military sale to the United Arab Emirates, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said April 23. The sale includes “blanket order requisitions” for certain aircraft parts, the DSCA said. The sale will allow the UAE to continue to buy “needed spare/repair parts” to maintain its aircraft fleet. The DSCA said there are no principal contractors involved with this potential sale.
The Commerce Department changed some details for its inaugural Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee meeting in May (see 2003050004), in a notice. Commerce clarified that the meeting will be held only through a remote teleconference and will take place from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. EDT on May 19. The meeting was previously scheduled for 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer notified Congress April 24 that the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement will enter into force on July 1, 2020. Following that notification to Congress, the U.S. certified to Mexico and Canada that it's ready for the NAFTA replacement to take effect.
The Commerce Department’s unclear rollout of an export control on geospatial imagery software is causing industry confusion and could lead to broad, unintended impacts on exports of certain artificial intelligence, industry representatives said in interviews. If unchanged, the rule could severely impact a range of companies in the geospatial field, they said, creating the type of broad consequences Commerce officials hoped to avoid (see 1911070014).
Canada said earlier this week that it intends to ask for World Trade Organization permission to retaliate for the U.S. countervailing measures on supercalendered paper that ended in 2018 but were ruled out of bounds in February 2020 by the WTO appellate body (see 2002060059). Supercalendered paper is glossy paper used in advertising inserts, catalogs and magazines. The U.S. had levied 20.18% and 17.87% countervailing duties on two Canadian companies in 2015.
The World Customs Organization issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The United Arab Emirates extended the deadline by one month for filing value-added tax returns and paying certain VATs, according to an April 21 KPMG post. The new deadline, May 28, will apply to VAT returns and for payment of VAT owed for the tax period that ended March 31. The original deadline was April 28.