A Rhode Island veterinary instrument supplier was fined $136,000 by the Commerce Department for 11 violations of the Export Administration Regulations, Commerce said in a charging letter signed Nov. 7. The company, Cotran Corp., illegally exported electric cattle prods to Venezuela, Mexico, South Africa and the Czech Republic without the required license, and did not comply with EAR record-keeping requirements, Commerce said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Export-Import Bank renewal a very important piece of legislation, at her press conference Nov. 14, and said it shouldn't be a bill that divides the two parties. However, The United States Export Finance Agency Act of 2019, which reauthorizes the Ex-Im Bank for 10 years, passed out of committee with no Republican support.

Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer said he doesn't know if they'll to be able to evaluate the details of the U.S.-Japan skinny trade deal in the hearing scheduled for next week, because the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has not released the text yet. He said in a Nov. 13 interview it's “troubling" that the House Ways and Means Committee has not received text of the deal, which was signed Sept. 26. "Sometimes dealing with USTR can be a little opaque, which is one of my constants through several administrations," he said.

The elimination of tariffs is an important condition for the U.S. and China to reach an agreement, said China Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng during a press conference Nov. 14, according to an unofficial translation of a transcript. If a first phase agreement is reached between the two countries, the extent of the tariff cancellation should fully reflect the magnitude of the deal, Gao said. The two sides are discussing this in depth, and China is willing to work together with the U.S. to resolve each other’s core concerns on the basis of equality and mutual respect, he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that a resolution to the negotiations between the Democrats in the working group and the Trump administration on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is “imminent," and that she believes it can be a template for future trade agreements. Pelosi, D-Calif., who was speaking at her weekly press conference on Nov. 14, suggested that the AFL-CIO would not argue against a "yes" vote for the NAFTA rewrite. "I think we'll see what the implementation is, and the enforcement is, and I think it will be a value that is shared by our friends in labor as well as the Democrats in Congress," she said.

China’s decision to lift import restrictions on U.S. poultry is expected to pave the way for more than $1 billion in U.S. poultry exports to China each year, the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Nov. 14. China’s customs agency and Ministry of Agriculture announced on Nov. 14 the country would be lifting the restrictions, according to a report from China’s state-run news agency Xinhua, allowing imports of U.S. poultry products for the first time since the ban began in 2015.

The U.S. should expand export controls against China and study the country’s efforts to dominate emerging technology sectors, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said. In its 2019 annual report, the USCC painted a somewhat grim picture for the prospects of U.S technology competition with China, saying China is committed to maintaining a dominant economic role in trade negotiations and is focused on outpacing the U.S. in the artificial intelligence sector -- a key area of concern for upcoming U.S. export control regimes. To combat this, the commission made several recommendations to Congress to safeguard U.S. technologies, improve foreign market access for U.S. exporters and pre-empt Chinese attempts to undercut U.S. companies and sanctions.

A recent Federal Maritime Commission proposed rule would lead to a much fairer enforcement process for alleged violations of the Shipping Act, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America said in comments submitted to the agency. The proposal would create a process for notifying a target of an investigation and allowing it to respond, and ensure that FMC commissioners see the target’s statement before deciding how to proceed. “As the members of the Commission would necessarily be involved at the outset, it seems more likely that potential enforcement cases would focus on issues that have a material adverse effect on trade or competition and minimize the initiation of cases that are based on relatively minor or technical infringements of regulations,” the NCBFAA said. The proposal would also make it “less likely that there would be an anecdotal approach to enforcement where only [the Bureau of Enforcement] and a respondent know what the issues in any prosecution actually involved.” But FMC should go beyond its proposal and create penalty and mitigation guidelines for Shipping Act violations, the trade group said.

The European Commission will soon introduce the “world’s first comprehensive database” of procurement data and barriers to international trade and procurement, the commission said Nov. 13. The database will provide “detailed data” on government contracts and trade barriers faced by European Union companies, and aims to improve EU companies’ access to public procurement contracts in non-EU countries. The database covers nine “key EU trading partners,” the commission said: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Thailand and the United States.

The European Commission recently issued its 2019 report on “bottlenecks” in the supply chain that restrict the flow of materials used for technologies in Europe’s defense and civil industries. The report focuses on five dual-use technologies -- advanced batteries, fuel cells, robotics, unmanned vehicles and 3D printing -- and details how Europe can strengthen its position “along the selected technologies’ supply chains,” the commission said. The commission said “potential opportunities for common policy action” include increasing “collaboration between stakeholders” and increasing industry involvement with “special emphasis” on small and medium-sized businesses.