The Philippines Bureau of Customs recently issued guidance on the processing, approval and payment of duty drawback, refund and abatement, BOC said in a May 7 press release. The new guidelines loosen restrictions on cash refund payments, and provide that tax credit certificates may not be assigned or transferred. The guidance also codifies “all existing rules and regulations pertaining to Duty Drawback, Refund and Abatement in the BOC, consistent with the provisions of the” Customs Modernization and Tariff Act, enacted by the Philippines in 2016.
The Senate on May 8 confirmed Judith DelZoppo Pryor, Spencer Bachus and Kimberly Reed to the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Pryor and Bachus will serve as board members and Reed will serve as the bank’s president. Pryor and Reed serve terms through Jan. 20, 2021; Bachus' term is through Jan. 20, 2023. The confirmations gave the bank enough directors for a quorum to approve transactions of more than $10 million (see 1905070009). The U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the confirmations in a May 8 statement: “Their confirmation restores Ex-Im to full functionality and will allow the Bank to get back to its critical mission of supporting U.S. exporters.”
A vote on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will “hopefully” be soon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, but stressed that the deal needs strong enforcement provisions before any progress will be made. During a Washington Post Live interview on May 8, Pelosi said an enforcement agreement is a prerequisite to any vote. “Unless you have it built into the agreement … it’s not binding on the other country. It’s us talking to ourselves,” she said. In a recent conversation with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Pelosi said, she urged him to include enforcement in the agreement, or else the agreement is “not a serious thing.” Pelosi said the Trump administration has expressed a desire to work on enforcement and said Trump has told her “we want to get to a yes” on the deal. “So hopefully that will be soon,” she said.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control removed sanctions on a former Venezuelan government official after he “broke ranks” with the Nicolas Maduro regime last week, OFAC said in a May 7 notice. OFAC said Manuel Ricardo Cristopher Figuera, the director general of Venezuela’s National Intelligence Service, was sanctioned in February as a member of the Venezuelan government. All of Cristopher’s property is now unblocked and transactions with him are allowed, the notice said.
Iran is suspending some of its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that involve selling enriched uranium in exchange for natural uranium and making “heavy water reserves” available on the open market, according to a May 8 press release from the Iran Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If the “E3, Russia and China” do not “fulfill their banking and oil commitments to Iran” within 60 days, the country may “not respect the current limits on uranium enrichment and may take measures to modernise the Arak heavy water reactor,” according to a May 8 post on the EU Sanctions blog.
The Trump administration on May 8 announced an executive order placing sanctions on Iran’s iron, steel, aluminum and copper sectors in what it said are the country’s “largest non-petroleum-related sources of export revenue."
China will take “necessary countermeasures” if the U.S. follows through on threats to increase tariffs on Chinese goods, according to an unofficial translation of a statement released by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on May 8. “The escalation of trade friction is not in the interests of the people of the two countries and the people of the world,” the statement said. “The Chinese side deeply regrets that if the US tariff measures are implemented, China will have to take necessary countermeasures.”
The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices as of May 8 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):
The State Department announced that R. Clarke Cooper was confirmed April 30 in the Senate as the assistant secretary for Political Military Affairs, in a May 2 notice. Cooper previously served as director of intelligence planning for Joint Special Operations Command’s Joint Inter-Agency Task Force -- National Capital Region, State said, and was a George W. Bush administration U.S. alternate representative to the United Nations Security Council. The White House advanced the nomination to the Senate, for a second time, in January.
The World Customs Organization issued the following release on commercial trade and related matters: