As customs brokers and importers respond to sudden changes in U.S. trade compliance regulations, the trade will need to come up with new models that can allow companies to be nimble when those changes trickle down to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, trade expert Cindy Allen said recently at the Automotive Industry Action Group's North American Customs and Trade Town Hall on Nov. 6 in Detroit.
China suspended export controls for a year on certain key critical minerals and other dual-use items that were banned from being shipped to the U.S. for military uses, China's Ministry of Commerce said in a Nov. 9 press release. The ban on exports of gallium, germanium, antimony and “superhard materials” was originally instated in December 2024 (see 2412030022). The move comes amid a thaw in the trade conflict between the U.S. and China after talks between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping at the end of last month (see 2510300003).
The Coalition for a Prosperous America, whose first CEO joined the Office of Management and Budget as associate director for economic policy (see 2502240005), is calling for replacing USMCA with two bilateral trade agreements. The CPA submitted comments for the USMCA six-year review.
There are probably five justices who will find that the reciprocal tariffs were not permissible under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that the president used to impose them, according to Georgetown University Law Center Professor Marty Lederman. Lederman, a senior fellow in the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown, was one of two guests on the weekly Washington International Trade Association podcast that aired Nov. 7.
The U.S. is likely to commit to a full renegotiation of USMCA during the trade pact's upcoming sunset review and could even abandon the trilateral agreement in favor of individual ones, according to Miguel Messmacher, former chief economist at the Ministry of Finance of Mexico.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has rescheduled a public hearing on how USMCA has been working to Dec. 3 through Dec. 5. Each day will begin at 9 a.m. at the International Trade Commission's main hearing room. The hearing was originally scheduled for Nov. 17.
NEW YORK -- Although the president's obsession with domestic manufacturing doesn't extend to apparel, there are no signs the administration will adjust tariff policy to make clothing imports more affordable, or even adjust rules of origin to privilege nearshoring, an old Washington hand told the U.S. Fashion Industry Association annual conference audience.
Reps. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., and Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., introduced a bill this week to require country of origin labeling (COOL) for beef, so that cattle must be both raised and processed in the U.S. to be labeled "Product of USA."
More than 100 House Democrats asked the U.S. trade representative to make significant changes to USMCA as part of its six-year review, arguing that imports from Mexico and Canada are undermining U.S. autoworkers, steelworkers, aerospace workers and farmers.
As the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative considers whether the U.S. wants to continue the USMCA, it will evaluate more than 1,500 comments from farmers, manufacturers, retailers, civic society and broad business interests that operate in all three countries.