Witnesses at a July 15 House hearing called for tariff measures to reduce Chinese dominance of critical mineral supply chains, with former Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., saying that tariffs on China were necessary to "protect strategic industries by penalizing bad actors and keeping the U.S. prices competitive."
The Senate passed a bill that directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop a methodology to identify the country of origin of imported red snapper and some tuna species. The goal is for CBP to be able to confiscate illegally caught red snapper and tuna at the time of import.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 7-13:
DOJ's criminal division has identified trade fraud as a top priority, assigning its market integrity and major frauds unit to handle tariff evasion cases, a DOJ official confirmed to us. The official said that the major frauds unit is shifting resources to trade and looking to cases involving "long-running frauds, senior executives, and large volumes of alleged losses from unlawful tariff evasion schemes."
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website July 14, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said that Indonesian goods will face a 19% tariff as part of a deal he previewed on social media earlier in the day. That is much lower than the 32% he had threatened in a recent letter. He also said U.S. goods will face no tariffs in Indonesia.
President Donald Trump said the trade deal he and Indonesia's president reached will provide U.S. exporters "full access," access exporters never had.
How the Trump administration chooses to define transshipment has the potential to redefine the current trading system with Southeast Asian countries, trade lawyers said. The recent trade deal framework with Vietnam contained a 40% tariff rate for "transshipped" goods, which is a different approach than previously employed for transshipment (see 2507080028).