Canada appears set to impose a three-year safeguard duty on imports of heavy steel plate and stainless steel wire from most countries, but could soon refund safeguard duties collected on five other types of steel, after the Canadian International Trade Tribunal issued a mixed decision April 3 on whether to finalize provisional safeguard duties in place since October.
Canada may pursue an increase in its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods as part of an effort to convince President Donald Trump to end the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said in a March 29 report. Mexico too is said to be considering an expansion to its retaliatory tariffs (see 1903140025). Additional tariffs on the U.S. are hoped to push Trump toward lifting the metals tariffs as part of U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade deal, the CBC reported.
After 25 Republican House members met with President Donald Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to talk about how to ratify the new NAFTA, Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., said on Fox Business News March 26 that he thinks Congress can do it before the August recess.
After 25 Republican House members met with President Donald Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to talk about how to ratify the new NAFTA, Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., said on Fox Business News March 26 that he thinks Congress can do it before the August recess.
Mexico is renewing temporary tariff increases on steel products under 186 tariff subheadings, according to a notice in the March 25 Diario Oficial. The across-the-board 15 percent tariff had originally been imposed on the same 186 tariff subheadings in June 2018, before apparently expiring on Jan. 31, 2019. The renewed tariff increases take effect March 26, and will remain in place for six months, the notice said.
United Steelworkers Canadian Director Ken Neumann and Quebec Director Alain Croteau say that quotas on Canadian steel and aluminum exports to the U.S. are not acceptable, and that Canada's parliament should not ratify the new NAFTA until the tariffs on the metals are lifted. “The federal government, Prime Minister Trudeau himself, and all party leaders must be very clear with the Americans that this trade agreement will not be ratified until tariffs and quotas are removed from the equation,” Neumann and Croteau said in a joint statement March 22.
The Mexican government is considering adding new products to a list of U.S. goods that face higher tariffs in response to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum. During a March 6 meeting "of the Foreign Trade Commission of the Mexican Senate, Luz Maria de la Mora-Sanchez, Foreign Trade Undersecretary of Mexico’s Ministry of Economy, announced that the Mexican government is planning to include additional items on its list of U.S. products subject to retaliatory measures," law firm Thompson Hine said in a blog post. The additional goods may be finalized by April, Thompson Hine said.
Importers can use the temporary import provisions with goods subject to Section 301 tariffs in order to pay the tariffs at current levels and avoid potential increases, CBP said in a Feb. 21 ruling, HQ H302203. Alex Romero of A.F. Romero & Co. Customs Brokers requested CBP's ruling on behalf Panacea Products Corp. Several of Panacea's products are subject to the third list of Section 301 tariffs, which were originally slated to increase from 10 percent to 25 percent on Jan. 1. That increase has since been delayed "until further notice" while the U.S. and China negotiate (see 1903010036).
General Electric, a major U.S. exporter, remains supportive of "the notion of trying to open markets," said Drew Quinn, director of trade policy at GE. But, the tariffs the U.S. is using to try to bludgeon China into a more open stance are worse than the status quo, he said. Quinn, who was speaking at a March 5 Washington International Trade Association program on Asia, said that tariffs are generally pretty low on the aircraft engines, MRI machines and turbines it sells. There aren't a lot of investment barriers, either. "The biggest issue for us is the host country's industrial policies, and how they favor their national champions," he said. But even there, Quinn said, GE has found a way to work with foreign countries where it has facilities, and has been able to participate in subsidies. "We may have a different and less absolutist position than some people."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce-organized USMCA Coalition launched Feb. 26, with many of the major trade players -- UPS, the Detroit automakers, the farm bureau, the American Apparel and Footwear Association -- and some notable absentees -- foreign automakers, aerospace firms.