Rep. Ron Kind, co-chairman of the New Democrats' trade task force, said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has done a good job on outreach, and sounding sympathetic to Democrats' complaints about enforceability, labor and other issues they want changed in the NAFTA rewrite. But Kind, who was speaking to reporters on a conference call from the Midwest on Sept. 4, said that "for some reason there's been a reluctance on sharing paper, putting words down" that would change the trade deal to satisfy these requests.
President Donald Trump told reporters that the negotiating meeting planned for September with the Chinese "is still on." He told reporters on Sept. 2 that "that hasn’t changed. They haven’t changed and we haven’t. We’ll see what happens."
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the preview of the Japan trade agreement talked about at the G-7 may only be in principle so far, "but I think this Japanese agreement will give farmers some reason to smile." Grassley, who was speaking with reporters on a conference call Aug. 29, said the deal would give dairy producers, wheat farmers, beef and pork producers and ethanol producers better access to Japan's market in return for eliminating U.S. tariffs "on certain industrial products," and the tariffs on those products are already pretty low.
Nazak Nikakhtar is no longer the acting Commerce Department undersecretary for industry and security, a position she held as she awaited confirmation from the Senate, a Commerce spokesperson said. Nikakhtar is no longer performing that duty and is now focused solely on her role as assistant secretary for industry and analysis. Her nomination has not yet been officially withdrawn.
In the Aug. 26 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
CBP is close to bringing industry on board to "go operational" with electronic manifest for export, said Jim Swanson, director of CBP’s Cargo and Security Controls Division, during the Aug. 21 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting in Buffalo, New York. Swanson said he has multiple meetings in the coming weeks with companies about using electronic manifest. CBP has been testing it internally for a while, Swanson said.
The United Kingdom’s department of Revenue and Customs on June 10 submitted written evidence to an inquiry from the U.K.’s Committee on Arms and Export Controls. The questions and answers document includes details on how the department determines enforcement penalties for export violations, how the department decides when to proceed with certain cases, the department’s “high vacancy rate” among staff and more. The department also addressed why it only conducted six “full criminal investigations” of a total of 652 "preliminary assessments" of potential breaches of export controls in 2016, difficulties in investigating end-user violations and what plans it has for preparing U.K. export controls after Brexit.
CBP officials applauded the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee’s report on improving trade in the Northern Triangle but said the report’s recommendations won’t lead to change unless COAC receives more of a commitment from the U.S. government. “It must be consistent and sustainable,” Josephine Baiamonte, CBP’s executive director for the International Operations Division of the Office of International Affairs, said during an Aug. 21 COAC meeting in Buffalo, New York. “Those two things are the things that are missing right now.”
A lack of trade facilitation, infrastructure and widespread corruption are three of the main challenges stymieing trade in the Northern Triangle, which could be improved with U.S. help, the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee Rapid Response Subcommittee said in a report prepared for the Aug. 21 COAC meeting. The report, compiled from COAC’s Northern Triangle Working Group, issued several recommendations for improving trade, including specific adjustments Northern Triangle countries can make to their customs agencies, an enhanced foreign-trade zone in the area, training from U.S. customs officials and better trade enforcement.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expects Canada's Parliament to continue progress on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in the fall following October elections, he said in recently posted written responses to House Ways and Means Committee members following a June 19 hearing (see 1906190062). "The Trudeau government has begun necessary steps to ratify the USMCA in its Parliament and has stated that it plans to move forward on implementation in tandem with the United States," he said. "The Canadian Parliament has adjourned for the summer and is not expected to return before federal elections are held on October 21, 2019. We anticipate that Canada will take up the legislation once a new government is seated later this fall, and we are confident that the Parliament will vote in favor of the Agreement."