Mara Lee

After a day when the stock markets responded as if President Donald Trump's May 5 tweet about raising tariffs on Chinese goods was an empty threat, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told reporters from a number of national outlets that the new tariff rate -- jumping from the current 10 percent to 25 percent -- would take effect at 12:01 a.m. on May 10.

A methodology the U.S. began using in 2017, after the U.S. Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015, should be talked about more "to ensure such practices do not result in more trade-restrictive effects than necessary," South Korea said at the World Trade Organization Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices meeting, according to a Geneva trade official. The approach, called "particular market situation," is supposed to be better than home market prices in cases of state intervention in markets. Trade hawk Peter Navarro, an assistant to President Donald Trump and the White House's director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, encouraged its use more often (see 1703240036). The first case was on oil country tubular goods from South Korea. The same methodology also has been used on Indonesian and Thai exports.

Twenty-five House members, led by former New Dems Chairman Jim Himes, D-Conn., asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer not to terminate India as a beneficiary under the Generalized System of Preferences program before a new government is seated in that country. India is in the midst of elections now. India could be terminated as early as May 4, since notice was given March 4. India is the top beneficiary of GSP, accounting for $5.6 billion of the program's $21.1 billion in imports last year, according to USTR. Almost 12 percent of India's exports to the U.S. are covered by GSP.

Calling the Section 232 exclusion process for steel and aluminum products "a master class in government inefficiency," Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross pointing out patterns of denials that she suspects mean the Commerce Department puts the burden of proof on requesters, not on the producers who object.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka tweeted earlier this week that workers "want to get to yes" on the NAFTA rewrite, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said May 2 that Democrats in the House do, too.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told one Democrat the agency would be starting a Section 301 exclusion process for the largest, third tranche of goods subject to tariffs by the end of April (see 1905020030), but he avoided committing to finishing evaluations of pending exclusions once tariffs are lifted. "USTR will consider all options in the event tariff rates are modified," he wrote to Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind. No exclusion process has launched, even though the April 30 target has passed. USTR's spokeswoman did not respond to a question by press time about when it might launch. All of Lighthizer's responses were posted April 24 as an addendum to the February hearing's transcript.

The World Trade Organization formally adopted the Russia-Ukraine panel ruling, the first time the WTO tackled the national security exception from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (see 1904120022). The case has implications for the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, which have hit U.S. allies as well as strategic competitors. The panel had found that the Russian Federation had met the requirements for invoking the national security clause in restricting transit of goods across its territory to Ukraine, because Russian seizure of Ukrainian territory (Crimea) counts as a time of international emergency.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., introduced a bill that, if it passed, would create a working group to evaluate the food safety threat posed by beef and poultry imported from Brazil. The working group would make recommendations to the Agriculture secretary on whether Brazilian beef and poultry exports to the U.S. should be banned.

Nine Democrats, led by Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, introduced a bill that would make it more difficult for trophy hunters to bring skins, tusks or other evidence of the spoils back to the United States. H.R. 2245, the CECIL Act, which stands for Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large Animal Trophies Act, is named after Cecil the Lion, an animal killed in a Zimbabwean national park in 2015. The bill would require the Interior secretary to evaluate whether the foreign country where the animal was hunted has a species management plan that "addresses existing threats to the species; provides a significant conservation benefit to the species; formally coordinates with neighboring countries; and "ensures that any take is sustainable and does not contribute to the species’ decline in either the short-term or long-term according to current population estimates derived through the use of the best available science."

A bipartisan bill that would prohibit importation, exportation and interstate trade of bear viscera or products advertised as containing bear viscera was introduced in the House of Representatives on April 10. Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.; Rodney Davis, R-Ill.; Ann Kuster, D-N.H.; and Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., co-sponsored H.R. 2264. The Bear Protection Act of 2019 says, "thousands of bears in Asia are cruelly confined in small cages to be milked for their bile, and the wild Asian bear population has declined significantly in recent years, as a result of habitat loss and poaching due to a strong demand for bear viscera used in traditional medicines and cosmetics." It also said that while most American black bear populations are stable or increasing, some bears have been poached for their viscera, and if that commercial trade grew, it could threaten American bear populations.