Agricultural trade associations applauded the Japanese Diet’s passage of the U.S.-Japan trade deal (see 1912040008) but urged the Trump administration to quickly begin working on a more comprehensive deal with Japan.

The World Customs Organization issued the following release on commercial trade and related matters:​​

In the Dec. 3-4 editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of Dec. 4 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):

The Canada Border Services Agency on Dec. 3 updated a memo on rail pre-arrival and reporting requirements to add information on direct delivery of consolidated freight, it said. The rail memo also now includes "details under carrier obligations, with regards to examination," it said. The agency also recently updated a memo on engine, vehicle, vessel and machine imports. That memo now has updated hyperlinks and contact information.

Japan’s minister of Economy, Trade and Industry urged World Trade Organization members to find a solution before the dispute settlement body ceases to function Dec. 10, according to an unofficial translation of a Dec. 3 press conference. The minister called the body “one of the pillars … [of] the multilateral free trade system.”

China approved its Wuwei Customs Supervision Area in the Gansu Province for imported timber, according to a Dec. 4 report from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. The facility was approved to import eight varieties of “bark-free boards,” the report said, including white birch, larch, Scots pine, Chinese pine, fir and spruce, which must be transported in sealed containers. Chinese customs may announce additional customs areas approved for imported timber, the report said.

Huawei is urging suppliers to move operations offshore to avoid U.S. sanctions and export controls, which would violate U.S. law, according to a Dec. 3 Reuters report. The Chinese technology giant has been “openly advocating” for companies to escape the jurisdiction of U.S. controls so sales can continue, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Reuters. “Anybody who does move the product out specifically to avoid the sanction ... that’s a violation of U.S. law,” Ross said. “So here you have Huawei encouraging American suppliers to violate the law.”

Japan’s Diet approved the country’s trade deal with the U.S., Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a Dec. 3 notice, according to an unofficial translation. The deal passed in Japan’s upper house after being approved by Japan’s lower house on Nov. 19 (see 1911190045), and sets up a Jan. 1, 2020, effective date. The deal, signed by the two countries in October, will eliminate nearly 250 tariff lines of Japanese imports into the U.S. and will lower Japanese tariffs on hundreds of U.S. exports, including food and agricultural goods (see 1910070074)

Democrats in the House insisted that their ideas about how to verify compliance with Mexico's labor laws is a balanced one that respects their sovereignty. Chief Mexican negotiator on USMCA, Jesus Seade, wrote a column published Dec. 4 that said, in Spanish, that there will be no “transnational inspectors,” even though the U.S. has pushed so much for that approach. "If the U.S. stops insisting on the pair of unacceptable ideas that the [Mexican trade group CCE] statement yesterday speaks of, we can soon have a treaty, and a very good treaty," he wrote (see 1912030033). He said that the state-to-state dispute settlement system, broken in NAFTA, "will now be 100% repaired, for all topics and sectors under the treaty."