More than 20 businesses and trade groups -- the first set of more than 80 scheduled to testify -- told the Section 301 investigation panel on July 24 that including their imports on the tariff list of $16 billion in Chinese products will lead to higher consumer prices, lower profits, abandoned expansion plans or worse. For Jane Hardy, CEO of Brinly-Hardy Company in Kentucky, having Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8432.4200, fertilizer spreaders, added to the list is an existential threat. With the tariff on steel, her family-owned company, founded in 1839, began paying 25 percent to 37 percent more for the metal, even though she'd always bought domestic steel. Then, with the first tranche of Section 301, Chinese wheels and hardware that her Indiana factory uses as it builds equipment were taxed at 25 percent.
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.
Canada asked for a Chapter 20 review under NAFTA of safeguard tariffs on solar panel imports.The tariffs on solar panels apply after a country has exported 2.5 gigawatts worth of product (see 1801230052), it said in a news release. Canada noted the U.S. International Trade Commission recommendation that Canada be excluded from any safeguard measures after finding that imports from Canada are not a source of injury to U.S. industry. Despite that, Canada is still subject to the tariffs. "The tariffs violate NAFTA rules and were imposed despite the fact that the United States International Trade Commission found that imports of solar panels from Canada were not harming U.S. industry," Chrystia Freeland, Canada's foreign minister, said July 23.
The hosts of the G-20 meeting of finance ministers in Buenos Aires declined to criticize U.S. protectionism when pressed by reporters, or give specifics about what others said to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was in attendance. Argentina's Finance Minister Luis Caputo said that while there are trade tensions, and that was the hottest topic at the meeting, "we had a very constructive dialogue. We have reasserted that trade and investments are an engine for growth, productivity, innovation, job creation... ."
At the same time that U.S. trade policy is disrupting sales to our biggest trading partners -- Canada, China, the European Union, Japan and Mexico -- the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is highlighting talks with tiny New Zealand. USTR announced on July 23 that the two countries concluded two days of talks on July 20 under the Trade Investment and Framework Agreement. The U.S. pressed New Zealand for improvements in honoring intellectual property. The two countries "agreed to a program of expanded cooperation on issues of shared interest, including working together to address trade barriers in third-country markets and exchanging information about unfair trade practices," the release said. It marked the second time New Zealand officials and top USTR officials have met this summer (see 1706160026)
It's worth it to make an effort to conclude NAFTA negotiations, Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told President Donald Trump in a letter he sent July 12. The letter was read aloud to Mexican reporters on July 22. "I think that prolonging the uncertainty could curb investment in the medium and long term, which would obviously create problems for Mexico's economic growth," he wrote in Spanish. He said Canada should be at the table, too.
President Donald Trump told a CNBC interviewer on July 20 that he's "ready to go to" with tariffs on $500 billion worth of Chinese imports. American Apparel and Footwear Association President and CEO Rick Helfenbein responded to the threat with concern in a news release: "We all want to participate in a trading system that creates more jobs in America and respects our intellectual property, but tariffs will not do this. ... More tariffs will not resolve this conflict -- they will only create inflation, hurt the consumer, and damage the economy."
Mexico's chief NAFTA negotiator will meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on July 26, but Canada's foreign minister will not attend. Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo told reporters in Mexico about the trip to Washington. The administration has been telling lawmakers that its ambition is to close a deal with Mexico first, and then bring Canada to the table. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters July 18: " We see a lot of progress on the conversations with Mexico and if we could make a bilateral deal with them, we're certainly very happy to do that." But Mexico continues to insist it wants a trilateral, not a bilateral, trade agreement.
The House Ways and Means chairman and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade have told CBP that it's unacceptable that the agency hasn't publish final rules for the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (TFTEA), since that legislation required the regulations be promulgated by Feb. 24 this year. "We are adamant that [you] finalize and publish the TFTEA regulations without further delay," Chairman Kevin Brady and subcommittee Chairman Dave Reichert wrote July 19. "We are particularly concerned that non-compliance has greatly complicated drawback claims, particularly given CBP’s refusal to grant accelerated payment until the regulatory package is final."
Countries that export billions of dollars' worth of autos and auto parts into the U.S. will punch back if tariffs are imposed on their products, top officials from Europe and Canada warned. And Mexico, which has one of the largest trade deficits in the automotive sector, reminded the U.S. government panel hearing testimony that its law enforcement cooperation with the U.S. countering narcotraffickers is invaluable. "A strong and successful United States is in the interest of Mexico no less than a strong and successful Mexico is in the interest of the United States," said Mexican Ambassador Geronimo Gutierrez Fernandez.
In more than 2,300 comments on the possibility of tariffs on imported autos and auto parts, only three support the idea, according to Jennifer Thomas, vice president of federal government affairs at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Thomas, who represents all companies with American plants, was one of 45 witnesses testifying at the Commerce Department July 19, as the department investigates whether an increase in auto parts imports impairs the economic security of the auto industry or the ability of the military to benefit from advanced technologies such as autonomous driving (see 1805240002).