The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced eligibility for “trade surplus” tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for sugar originating in certain free trade agreement countries for calendar year 2025. USTR found Colombia, Panama and five members of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement -- Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua -- eligible for the TRQ. The agency found that Chile, the Dominican Republic, Morocco and Peru don't qualify.
House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., said that there will be a renewed bipartisan effort to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act next year. He called AGOA "something that is very beneficial to our U.S. trade policy." But LaHood left the door open to phasing out or changing the third-party fabric provision of AGOA in the 2025 reauthorization.
Running a large trade surplus with the U.S. is only one way to draw President-elect Donald Trump's tariff fire, argues a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation; other ways would be by expecting the U.S. to provide a defense umbrella, enacting digital services taxes or other anti-U.S. regulations, and taking what ITIF called "soft positions toward China."
The possibility of a double whammy come January consisting of a strike at East and Gulf coast ports and the implementation of President-elect Donald Trump's proposed tariffs (see 2411250034) is making shippers nervous, with the National Retail Federation saying that the scenarios could result in a "continued surge in imports through next spring."
President-elect Donald Trump said the U.S. is "subsidizing Canada to the tune [of] over $100 billion a year. We’re subsidizing Mexico for almost $300 billion. We shouldn’t be -- why are we subsidizing these countries? If we’re going to subsidize them, let them become a state."
Importer Fine Emeralds will get refunds for duties paid on its rough, unworked emerald stones, the company announced in a stipulated judgment filed on Dec. 9 at the Court of International Trade. While the emeralds were assessed 10.5% duties under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 7103.10.40, the government agreed to classify the products under subheading 7103.10.20, free of duty. Fine Emeralds' preferred subheading covers uncorked precious stones (Fine Emeralds v. U.S., CIT # 20-03928).
The U.S. may consider imposing new import tariffs on older generation semiconductors from China, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.
Four senators, a pair from both parties, introduced a bill that would authorize the U.S. trade representative, with consultation with Congress about objectives, to negotiate specialized trade agreements focused on critical minerals and rare earth elements. Those trade agreements would also need to get a vote of approval from Congress before they could enter into force.
President-elect Donald Trump is most likely to announce 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods the day he takes office, "then immediately suspend them -- with a deadline -- to allow for a negotiation," Bill Reinsch, a think tank leader who often opines on trade, wrote this week.
Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Dec. 4 questioned importer Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) and the government regarding the tariff classification of frozen fruit mixtures. Judge Todd Hughes led the bulk of the questioning, pushing Nature's Touch on how to classify the goods if the court finds that the mixtures aren't food preparations, as claimed by the company, and how they should be classified instead under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 0811, which covers certain frozen fruit (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2093).