From corporate giants to small companies, in farming, manufacturing and retail, Americans said tariffs on Canada and Mexico were damaging their businesses and driving up costs for customers.
Going from zero tariffs on most Canadian and Mexican imports to 25% convulsed Capitol Hill and foreign capitals, with some Republicans diverging from the president's protectionist message and Democrats universally using the action to attack Trump as the reason prices will go up.
Stacy Hernandez, a former international trade specialist at the Commerce Department, was “let go” from her position March 3 amid the Trump administration's sweeping cuts of employees who are still on probationary status. March 4 would have been her first day off probation, she said on LinkedIn. She joined ITA last year after working in the Bureau of Industry and Security's Office of Technology Evaluation.
Beijing is studying ways to retaliate against an increase to 20% in U.S. tariffs to address fentanyl smuggling (see 2502270037), state-run news outlet Global Times reported March 3. China's countermeasures likely will include a combination of tariffs and non-tariff measures, the report said, with American agricultural and food products likely to be targeted.
The Federal Highway Administration is delaying the effective date of a final rule aimed at ensuring that manufactured products used on federal-aid projects are manufactured in the U.S.
The International Trade Commission published notices in the March 3 Federal Register on the following antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) injury, Section 337 patent or other trade proceedings (any notices that warrant a more detailed summary will be in another ITT article):
The International Trade Commission is seeking public input on remedies for its Section 337 investigation on Nokia's imported laptop and desktop computers, tablet computers, streaming devices, televisions, cameras and components (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1380), the ITC said in a notice to be published March 4. The ITC initiated the investigation in December 2023 based on allegations that HP and Amazon were importing various electronics that infringe seven of Nokia's patents covering motion compensated prediction inventions, improvements to video decoding techniques, encoding and decoding, and video compression (see 2311030010). The ITC partially terminated the investigation with respect to HP in December and the administrative law judge subsequently found a Section 337 violation by Amazon. The ITC is reviewing the ALJ's determination and is requesting written submissions by “close of business” on March 13.
The International Trade Commission has ended a Section 337 investigation on imported of Dyson surface cleaning products (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1404), it said in a March 3 notice. Complainants SharkNinja and Omachron initially alleged in 2023 that Dyson’s stick and hand vacuums copy SharkNinja's and Omachron’s patents related to a straight-line configuration, dust-emptying system and separate dirt collection and cyclone chambers (see 2406130034).
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register March 3 on the following antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CVD rates, scope, affected firms or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
The Commerce Department soon will suspend liquidation and impose countervailing duty cash deposit requirements on imports of hexamine from China and India, it said in a fact sheet issued March 3. A CVD rate is set at 420.53% for Chinese exporters, and ranges from 2.32% to 139.55% for Indian exporters, the agency said as it announced its preliminary determinations in its ongoing CVD investigations. Suspension of liquidation and cash deposit requirements will take effect for entries on or after the date of publication of the preliminary determinations in the Federal Register, which should occur in the coming days. Commerce is conducting concurrent antidumping duty investigations on the same products from China, Germany, India and Saudi Arabia, with preliminary determinations expected on April 29.