Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said after two days of meeting with Chinese negotiators, he anticipates a threatened additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods won't come Nov. 1, and that the Chinese will defer their critical minerals export control licensing scheme.
President Donald Trump signed trade deals with Cambodia and Malaysia, leaving 19% tariffs on both Cambodian and Malaysian goods, with some carve-outs for tropical fruits and woods, minerals, and some goods covered by pending Section 232 investigations, such as aviation parts and chemicals used to make pharmaceuticals. The 19% tariffs layer on top of most-favored nation rates, which, in the case of apparel and shoes that dominate Cambodia's top exports, are already quite high.
President Donald Trump wrote on social media that because of the "serious misrepresentation of the facts" in an ad the government of Ontario ran during the World Series, using excerpts of a Ronald Reagan speech, "I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now. " It's not clear what this would apply to.
Sara McLean, former assistant director of DOJ's commercial litigation branch, has left the agency after over 26 years of service, she announced on LinkedIn. McLean joined DOJ in 1999 before becoming assistant director of the commercial litigation branch in 2010. In this role, she supervised False Claims Act enforcement involving cyber, healthcare, procurement and financial fraud matters.
On Oct. 23, the FDA posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts (after not having posted new ones for a number of days) on the detention without physical examination of:
The Trump administration signaled that it doesn't expect to have a signing ceremony of a trade framework with South Korea while the president is there in the coming days for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
A group of 44 leading economists, including former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and four Nobel Prize winners, filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court on Oct. 23 to contest President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs, arguing that the threat underlying the tariffs, sustained trade deficits, don't amount to an "unusual and extraordinary" threat to the U.S. economy, as required by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (Donald J. Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, U.S. 25-250) (Learning Resources v. Donald J. Trump, U.S. 24-1287).
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP will add a new ACE Entry Summary record for reporting either the value content for aluminum, steel and copper imports or the non-U.S. content for imports subject to the duties levied under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, according to CBP's Development and Deployment Schedule for October. The agency began working on this enhancement this month, according to the schedule, which was announced via an Oct. 23 cargo systems message.
Twenty-seven amicus briefs were filed at the Supreme Court on Oct. 24 in opposition to the ability of President Donald Trump to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, bringing to 35 the total number of amicus briefs filed at the high court against the tariffs. The amici are a mix of law professors, current and former government officials, policy advocacy groups, economists and individual companies.