U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack jointly announced that India is now allowing pork imports from the U.S. USDA updated its export library on the issue on Dec. 30, but the press release on the change came out Jan. 10. Tai said she raised the importance of allowing pork exports to India's commerce minister in November, when she visited New Delhi.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, after speaking with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis Jan. 5, said that the U.S. supports Lithuania as it faces economic coercion from China, and that the U.S. wants to work with the European Union "to address coercive diplomatic and economic behavior. They discussed the importance to addressing our shared challenges through a close, transatlantic partnership that embraces and reflects U.S. and EU jointly-held values, which can be supported in part through the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council." China stopped allowing Lithuanian goods to enter China after Lithuania publicly supported Taiwan's independence (see 2112090012).
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, in a year-end video, pointed to a number of settlements during 2021 that both bolstered America's relationships with its allies and promoted the fight against climate change. She pointed to the settlement of a Section 337 case between two South Korean battery makers that allowed for a Georgia plant to open (see 2104120004); the settlement of the 17-year dispute over subsidies to Airbus and Boeing (see 2106150021 and 2106170025); and the agreement between the European Union and the U.S. to replace Section 232 tariffs with a quota system (see 2111010039).
A Canadian practice of reserving at least 85% of dairy quotas for Canadian processors is counter to the USMCA, a panel ruled. The panel's decision was made public Jan. 4. Canada has until Feb. 3 to reform its tariff rate quota allocations. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative noted that from January through October last year, the U.S. exported $478 million worth of dairy products to Canada.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top 20 stories published in 2021 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference numbers.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Deputy USTR Sarah Bianchi spoke with Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa Dec. 21 about adjusting the level of U.S. beef exports that triggers a safeguard tariff, according to a USTR readout of the video call.
Fourteen pro-trade House Democrats are asking Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to quickly advance discussions on how tariffs on Japanese and British steel and aluminum could be lifted. "[D]ownstream users continue to face astonishingly high prices in steel and aluminum," wrote the group, which is led by Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington state.
Twenty years after China joined the World Trade Organization, the U.S. is focused on the market distortions and domestic consequences caused by China's export-led growth, even as exports are a smaller and smaller proportion of China's GDP.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai took a victory lap at the U.S Chamber of Commerce's Transatlantic Business Works Summit, pointing to the removal of the digital services taxes on American firms, the agreement on steel and aluminum and the resolution of a 17-year fight on subsidies for Airbus and Boeing.
The newly formed Coalition for Economic Partnerships in the Americas does not explicitly say that the textile rules of origin in CAFTA-DR need reform, though it calls on the administration "to do what previous administrations ignored: to structure trade to support investment in the United States and our allies in Central America. In order for our economy to thrive, we must eliminate the bureaucratic red tape that hinders production and investment in the region."