Global economic growth slowed “sharply” in 2018 due to escalating trade conflicts and could continue to slow from the U.S.’s trade war with China, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a May 21 report. While global growth has stabilized at a “moderate level” in 2019, the report expects the global economy to grow at a “fragile” rate in the next two years, but could be derailed by “trade tensions, high policy uncertainty, risks in financial markets and a slowdown in China.” Trade tensions could slow global growth to 3.2 percent in 2019 and 3.4 percent in 2020, OECD said, and world trade will grow by just more than 2 percent in 2019, which would be the lowest rate in a decade. The estimates are conditional on “no escalation of trade tensions,” OECD added, which could reduce global gross domestic output by more than 0.6 percent over the next three years.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service recently clarified procedures for exporters to obtain radiation letters, according to the North American Meat Institute. In communications with Meat Institute staff, FAS said requests for radiation letters should include the U.S. company name, address, phone number and point of contact name. “Requests also should stipulate the agricultural commodity being exported, the export destination and the number of radiation letters needed -- the limit is 50,” the trade group said. Exporters are required to submit requests on company letterhead to the FAS Processed Products and Technical Regulations division, which will then issue the radiation letters via UPS for agricultural food and feed products only, the North American Meat Institute said. Companies are required to send a UPS label along with their requests, it said.

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said Congress will soon pass a bill placing sanctions on Nord Stream 2, the Russian gas pipeline to Germany, Reuters reported May 21. The bill would likely place significant restrictions on companies involved in the project. Perry said the bill will appear in the “not too distant future,” according to Reuters. “The United States Senate is going to pass a bill, the House is going to approve it, and it’s going to go to the President and he’s going to sign it, that is going to put sanctions on Nord Stream 2.”

The State Department designated 22 people, entities or their subsidiaries under the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act for trading goods that may be used for weapons of mass destruction or ballistic missile systems, the department said in a Federal Register notice to be published May 22. The additions include people and entities associated or located in China, Iran, Russia and Syria.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for May 13-17 in case they were missed.

The Department of Justice is working on more ways to reward corporate compliance programs and searching for benefits that extend beyond lenient rulings on violations, said Claire McCusker Murray, the DOJ's principal deputy associate attorney general.

An agricultural exporter recently joined a Supreme Court challenge of the constitutionality of Section 232 duties on steel and aluminum imports. Basrai Farms says the brunt of retaliatory tariffs imposed worldwide in response to the U.S. tariffs has fallen on the agriculture industry, and that the Supreme Court should find Section 232 unconstitutional because President Donald Trump was required to consider these broader effects when imposing the tariffs.

In the May 20 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices as of May 20 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):

Egypt recently changed its U.S. beef import requirements when the country “delisted” all but one of U.S. halal certifiers and announced that it is now accepting shipments from U.S. beef facilities that have been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service, according to a USDA Foreign Agricultural Service notice published May 17. With the change, Egypt approved “only one of the eight U.S. halal certifiers” to certify shipments to Egypt, and “suspended or rejected” the remaining seven “without explanation,” USDA said. The new halal certifying organization is IS EG Halal Certified, based in New Jersey, the report said. "The firm is not known to have a preexisting relationship with the U.S. beef industry or Islamic organizations in the United States," according to the notice. Therefore, USDA said, exporters who ship beef to Egypt should contact the new certifier “directly to clarify certification procedures.” The changes are believed among those in the industry to have taken effect May 1, though the official date was not indicated, according to the report.