It's not realistic to believe Canada, Mexico and the U.S. would be ready to admit more members to the USMCA before their presidential contests in 2024 or Canada's parliamentary elections in 2025, panelists said at a program hosted by the Council of the Americas. But Juan Carlos Baker, Mexico's former chief negotiator for the NAFTA successor, said the six-year review in 2026 would be a perfect time to make accession a possibility.
Two members of the House of Representatives asked the House Ways and Means Committee to renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, and several others also advocated for trade policies on the day that the committee welcomed other members to advocate for their priorities.
A former Office of the U.S. Trade Representative career negotiator and a former Trump administration trade adviser say that even if the U.S. is not going to reenter into a tweaked Trans-Pacific Partnership -- as they advised in an earlier think tank piece -- the U.S. needs to take trade negotiations in Asia more seriously to not get left behind.
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register Sept. 8 on the following AD/CV duty proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
The Supply Chain Agreement, one of the pillars of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, will ask participating countries to work together to:
The U.S. Lumber Coalition, which represents sawmills and owners of timberlands, said U.S. courts are the better venue for resolving legal questions on trade remedies, so its members are glad that Canada is going to the Court of International Trade rather than asking for a dispute panel under USMCA.
A recent Congressional Research Service report on U.S.-Mexican trade relations noted that members of Congress have varying views on USMCA, the trade deal that has integrated North American supply chains, particularly in the auto industry.
Canada is choosing to call for a binational panel to determine whether the countervailing duty order on its softwood lumber exports is fair, but is challenging the antidumping order at the Court of International Trade.
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) for CBP will next meet remotely Sept. 20, CBP said in a notice. Comments are due in writing by Sept. 15.
Canada will participate as a third party in the U.S.-Mexico dispute over Mexico’s ban on genetically engineered corn in tortillas and dough, the country announced Aug. 25. Mary Ng, Canada’s trade minister, said she “shares the concerns of the United States that Mexico is not compliant with the science and risk analysis obligations under” the USMCA’s sanitary and phytosanitary measures chapter. “Canada believes that the measures taken by Mexico are not scientifically supported and have the potential to unnecessarily disrupt trade in the North American market,” Ng said.