The European Commission released a progress report on the EU-U.S. trade talks, saying “concrete actions” have been taken that take the two sides’ “relationship to the next level,” the commission said in a July 25 press release. Since talks officially began one year ago on July 25, the commission said, the EU has “significantly increased” imports of U.S. “liquefied natural gas” and soya beans but also mentioned some roadblocks in negotiations. The commission said it wants to begin negotiations on “eliminating” U.S. tariffs on industrial goods, but “it was not yet possible to launch negotiations in this area due to diverging objectives on the two sides. The commission also said the EU “continues to make the case for ending U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium,” which would lead the EU to “remove the rebalancing tariffs on U.S.exports.”

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will hold trade talks in Shanghai that begin July 30. The White House said that the "discussions will cover a range of issues, including intellectual property, forced technology transfer, non-tariff barriers, agriculture, services, the trade deficit, and enforcement."

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned a Colombian national, his business associates, family members and a collection of shell companies that has propped up the Nicolas Maduro regime through food imports and distribution in Venezuela, Treasury said in a July 25 press release. OFAC sanctioned Alex Nain Saab Moran, nine other associates and 13 entities for participating in the scheme.

The State Department is seeking public comments on an advance notice of proposed rulemaking that would consolidate and clarify exemptions in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the agency said in a notice. The State Department is specifically seeking comments about whether any of the exemptions are “redundant” or “contain language that introduces significant ambiguity or hinders the exemption’s intended use,” the notice said. The notice is scheduled to publish July 26. State is in the process of reorganizing the ITAR (see 1907120011). Comments are due by Aug. 26.

CBP hopes its Electronic Export Manifest system reduces costs and waiting times for U.S. exporters, who are being burdened by CBP’s “antiquated process for exports,” said Jim Swanson, director of CBP’s Cargo and Security Controls Division, at the agency’s Trade Symposium in Chicago on July 25.

In the July 13-24 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 July 24 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):

Portugal is gaining more access to Chinese agricultural markets and signed a “protocol” with China in June that allows Portugal to export “swine offals” to China, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a Foreign Agricultural Service report released July 23. That move comes after a May agreement in which China agreed “to facilitate Portuguese agricultural exports,” USDA said. Portugal expects the Chinese market to “open for all Portuguese swine offals” by 2020, the report said. The agreements are expected to “transform the structure of Portuguese pork industry” and will bring challenges to “slaughterhouses without their own pork production and without export strategies,” the report said. In addition, Portugal’s pork industry plans to increase hog production “to satisfy the domestic and increasing international pork demand,” USDA said.

Mexico’s Tax Administration Service (SAT) issued 262 seizure orders for undervaluation in the first quarter of 2019, a year-on-year increase of 60.7%, according to a report on the Mexican business news site Opportimes. That’s even though SAT carried out only 625 value analyses during the first quarter, 60.1% fewer than the same period the previous year, the report said.

Bangladesh’s import and export license approval and renewal system is now online, allowing traders to “fast-track the approval process” and streamline export-import procedures, according to a July 24 report from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. The system allows traders to apply for Bangladesh's Ministry of Commerce’s Export Registration Certificates and Import Registration Certificates. The move is part of the ministry's commitment under the World Trade Organization to digitize trade procedures and “cut costs for companies,” the report said. The move is expected to reduce paperwork, processing times and corruption “by ensuring traders do not have to make informal payments to secure permits,” the report said.