The U.S. designated China as a currency manipulator, saying the country has been trying to gain an “unfair competitive advantage in international trade,” the Department of the Treasury said in an Aug. 5 press release. Treasury said China has “taken concrete steps to devalue its currency” in “recent days” and said China has openly acknowledged that “it has extensive experience manipulating its currency and remains prepared to do so on an ongoing basis.” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will work with the International Monetary Fund to “eliminate” the unfair advantage created by China's latest actions, the press release said.

Singapore Customs issued a circular outlining changes and new requirements for rules of origin and certification procedures under revised regulations of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area, Singapore said in an Aug. 6 notice. The circular describes the requirements that have to be met for goods to be qualified as originating goods, and details the expansion to the list of “Product Specific Rules” and the inclusion of a de minimis provision. Singapore said the new requirements will take effect Aug. 15.

Vietnam is banning imports of 13 types of “scrap” because of environmental pollution, according to an Aug. 5 report from Vietnam Customs’ mouthpiece CustomsNews. The banned scraps include: gypsum, silk, “chemical elements for use in electronics,” vonfram, molypden, magie, titan, zircon, antimon, crom, “reboilded ingot waste,” plastic waste and scrap plastics from polymers styrene, the report said.

China will eliminate all duties and ease customs procedures at its Shanghai Free Trade Zone as part of an upcoming pilot program, Reuters reported Aug. 5. Chinese leaders are planning to discuss the plan this month and could announce the program this year, the report said. Among the topics of discussion, Reuters said, is whether U.S. goods and companies would be included in the program.

South Korean companies can still import Japanese goods despite Japan’s export restrictions by making use of a Japanese approval process called the Compliance Program, according to an Aug. 3 report from the Korea JoongAng Daily. The program allows certain registered companies a shortened timeline for exporting dual-use items and allows them to trade freely for three years with “no additional paperwork,” the report said. The report said 632 Japanese companies are registered with the program, including “major material manufacturers and chemical companies” such as Toray Industries, JSR, Sumitomo Chemical and Showa Denko.

Singapore is issuing a new “strategic goods control list” to bring Singapore trade controls “up to date” with the 2018 Wassenaar Arrangement's Munitions List and the 2018 European Union Control List of Dual-Use Items, Singapore customs said in an Aug. 1 notice. The list includes new controls, removes other controls and includes “editorial changes for consistency and clarity of controls,” Singapore said. The new controls will take effect Oct. 1.

Taiwan lowered Most Favored Nation tariffs on certain agricultural goods from Japan in a bid to “normalize” the Taiwan-Japan trade relationship, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service said in a report issued July 31. The two countries’ trade relationship is marred by the 2018 “anti-Fukushima food referendum,” the USDA said, which kept in place a ban on Fukushima agricultural exports to Taiwan for two years. Taiwan is hoping the tariff reduction helps it earn Japanese support for joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the report said. The tariff changes were passed by Taiwan’s legislature July 2.

Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration is requiring health certificates for imports of eggs, egg products, gelatins and gelatin derivatives “intended for food use,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service said in a report released July 31. The changes took effect Aug. 1. USDA is advising U.S. exporters to obtain the certificates for all shipments leaving the U.S. on or after Aug. 1.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to meet with Japan and South Korea in an effort to ease trade tensions between those two countries, he said July 30. Pompeo, traveling to a Thailand summit for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said both Japan and South Korea are “great partners of ours” and that “we will encourage them to find a path forward” and “get to a good place.” He plans to meet with Japan's Foreign Affairs Minister Taro Kono and South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha.

Japan is expected to pass a bill to remove South Korea from its so-called "whitelist" of trusted trading partners as the two countries grow more entrenched in their ongoing trade dispute, according to a July 30 report from The Korea Herald.