Wednesday, April 2

Tag: trade

USTR Releases Report on Trade Barriers
1Apr By Patti MohrNo Comments
Global Trade, Globalization, Global Disintegration, Types of News: Brief

USTR Releases Report on Trade Barriers

April 1, 2025--On the week the Trump Administration is expected to issue tariffs that could potentially impact most U.S. trading partners, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer released a report detailing barriers to global trade. The 397-page report includes input from several government agencies and public comments from October 2024. Organized by country, it will likely serve as a compass for bilateral negotiations going forward. What's helpful is a description of 14 types of trade barriers discussed. They include: Import policies such as tariffs, import charges, quantitative restrictions, and licensing requirements, customs barriers and shortcomings in trade facilitation, and other market access barriers; Technical barriers to trade, such as restrictive standards, conformity ...
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U.S. Cites Currency Manipulation As Source of Trade Subsidy in Twist-Tie Case
25Nov By Patti MohrNo Comments
Currency, Debt, National Budgets & Interest Rates, Global Trade, Types of News: Brief

U.S. Cites Currency Manipulation As Source of Trade Subsidy in Twist-Tie Case

November 25, 2020--For the first time in an investigation of a trade subsidy, the U.S. Commerce Department identified China's undervalued currency as a state subsidy warranting a financial penalty at the U.S. border. On Tuesday, the department announced it is asking the U.S. Customs and Border Control to begin collecting cash deposits at a rate of 122.5 percent from importers of Chinese twist ties. The rate reflects the total amount of subsidies U.S. officials estimate Chinese twist tie exporters receive from their government. Next Steps Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. said the department would "continue to use the legal tools at our disposal to aggressively counter currency undervaluation and other unfair subsidies, further ensuring a level playing field for American businesses a...
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16Jan By Patti MohrNo Comments
Global Trade, Types of News: Brief, United States

Congress Clears US-Mexico-Canada Trade Deal

January 16, 2020-It's a big week for trade. A day after the United States and China agreed to a phase one of a trade deal, the U.S. Senate approved a trade agreement that replaces NAFTA. Only nine senators voted against it while 89 voted for it. Since the House has previously passed it with a bipartisan 385-41 vote, the agreement is cleared for the White House. The deal, the USMCA, is a massive three-way agreement that covers goods worth about $1.3 trillion. Leaders of Mexico, Canada and the United States signed the deal in late 2018. Mexico's Senate voted for the agreement on June 20, 2019 and a revised treaty on Dec. 12, 2019. It's up to the Mexican president to ratify it. Canada is expected to consider implementing legislation when the new Parliament begins its session. For...
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Tenuous US-China Trade Talks
14Oct By Patti MohrNo Comments
Global Trade, Types of News: Brief

Tenuous US-China Trade Talks

October 14, 2019--High-level trade talks between U.S. and Chinese leaders last week produced some results but left the possibility for higher tariffs open in December if details are not settled. "We have a great deal. We're papering it now," U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday. "China is going to keep their word. They want to make the deal." China's chief negotiator signaled modest support. "We have made substantial progress in many fields," Vice Premier Liu He said through an interpreter on Friday. "We are happy about it." The partial deal, which is not yet settled, comes at a time when trade between the two countries has fallen. According to a report today in the Financial Times, China's imports from the United States fell 26.4 percent in September while its exports t...
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WTO Deals Blow to U.S. Case Against China’s State-Subsidized Pricing
18Jul By Patti MohrNo Comments
Communism, Dictatorship, Global Trade, Types of News: Brief

WTO Deals Blow to U.S. Case Against China’s State-Subsidized Pricing

July 18, 2019-- The world's litigation body for trade disputes dealt a new blow to a multiyear effort by U.S. representatives to counteract pricing impacted by state-owned enterprises. The decision impacts a wide range of products, including solar panels and aluminum. More striking, it weighs in on the mounting tension in the global economy between competing economic systems. What: This Week's Action Late Tuesday, a World Trade Organization appellate body upheld a decision by a lower panel regarding U.S. tariffs on a series of mostly industrial products imported from China that U.S. officials believe to be subsidized and under priced. Products impacted include solar panels, wind towers, steel cylinders and sinks, kitchen shelving, lawn groomers, aluminum extrusions and a serie...
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U.S.-China Head Off Trade War
3Dec By Patti MohrNo Comments
Global Trade, Types of News: Brief

U.S.-China Head Off Trade War

Dec. 3, 2018-Meeting in in Buenos Aires, Argentina on the sidelines of the G20 summit over the weekend, Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed prevent a pending hike in tariffs scheduled to take effect in less than a month. It was their first formal face-to-face meeting since Trump visited China in November of 2017. "It’s an incredible deal," Trump said to reporters on Dec. 2 on Air Force One. "It goes down, certainly — if it happens, it goes down as one of the largest deals ever made.... And what I’d be doing is holding back on tariffs. China will be opening up. China will be getting rid of tariffs." Timeout on Tariff Hikes In effect, the agreement gives U.S.-Chinese negotiators 90 days to complete talks on the following trade issues: forced techn...
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Canada, Mexico & U.S. Leaders Sign New Trade Deal
30Nov By Patti MohrNo Comments
Global Trade, Types of News: Brief

Canada, Mexico & U.S. Leaders Sign New Trade Deal

Nov. 30, 2018--The presidents of Canada, Mexico and the United States signed a new trade agreement governing trillions of dollars of North American trade. Meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina ahead of today's G20 meeting, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto signed the treaty. The legislatures each country still need to approve it before it takes effect. NAFTA Becomes USMCA The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement succeeds the North American Free Trade Agreement. USMCA covers agriculture, intellectual property, digital trade and financial services. It includes environmental safeguards against unregulated fishing and in trafficking in wildlife and timber and labor rights, such as worker representation in collective bargai...
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Businesses Begin to Feel the Bite of a Global Trade War
26Jun By Patti MohrNo Comments
Global Trade, Types of News: Analysis

Businesses Begin to Feel the Bite of a Global Trade War

June 26, 2018 - As a growing list of tariffs and retaliatory tariffs take effect, businesses are beginning to feel the economic impact. Manufacturers worldwide are bracing for the change and considering ways to manage. Importers and Exporters Impacted Manufacturers in Guangdong, China, for instance, say they are consider setting up factories in countries like India, Vietnam and Mexico, shipping their products to the United States through other countries first and charging U.S. buyers more. While the impact might be relatively small for Chinese industry as a whole, individual industries and companies, such as automotive suppliers, would be hit hard, according to South China Morning Post reporting. Companies making metal products who are exposed to both tariffs and counter tariffs on st...
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U.S. to Target China’s Strategic Industries in New 25 Percent Tariffs
15Jun By Patti MohrNo Comments
Global Trade, Types of News: Brief

U.S. to Target China’s Strategic Industries in New 25 Percent Tariffs

June 15, 2018-U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans today to impose 25 percent tariffs on up to $50 billion of Chinese imports related to "industrial significant technologies." The tariffs will target emerging high-technologies outlined in China's "Made in China 2025," a strategic plan China published in 2015. That plan proposes to remake the Chinese economy from a low-cost manufacturing hub to a higher-value producer in 10 key sectors, including green technologies, robotics, aerospace, transportation, information technology, and pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Many analysts, such as those at the Council on Foreign Relations, view China's strategic vision as an industrial threat. Trump echoed that sentiment in his announcement. "The United States can no longer toler...
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NOTABLE QUOTABLE: “If you are spending more than you are producing, that means you will have a trade deficit…. America is spending more than you are producing.”
12Jun By Patti MohrNo Comments
Global Trade, Types of News: Quotes

NOTABLE QUOTABLE: “If you are spending more than you are producing, that means you will have a trade deficit…. America is spending more than you are producing.”

Little Sympathy for U.S. Trade Deficit in Singapore June 12, 2018--Speaking to reporters in Singapore, U.S. President Donald Trump complained that the United States "has lost $800 billion" due to its trade deficit with the rest of the world over the last couple years. While that message may appeal to Trump supporters in the United States, it doesn't carry much weight abroad. Lee summed up the U.S. trade-deficit situation quite simply. "If you are spending more than you are producing, that means you will have a trade deficit; if you're spending less than you're producing, that means you will save money or run a trade surplus. So America is spending more than you are producing. Why are you able to do that? Because you are the most powerful country in the world, and everybody else wan...
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