Mexico's President Elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would prefer getting a new NAFTA concluded before he takes office December 1, observers said, but he has most of the same deal-breakers as the current Mexican negotiators. How Lopez Obrador's election will affect NAFTA was one of the focuses of an Atlantic Council panel that met July 12 in Washington. Paula Stern, a former chairwoman of the International Trade Commission, said while the ministers from Mexico and Canada are slated to meet with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in late July, "I do not think there's going to be a lot of movement."
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.
Some leaders on the House Foreign Affairs Committee intend to file legislation to remove China's Most Favored Nation status, according to Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade. Poe said in a July 11 interview that Asia Subcommittee Chairman Ted Yoho and the ranking member on both subcommittees are all in agreement on the legislation. China has had MFN status with the U.S. since 1980, but that was made permanent only in 2001. In 1990, in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Congress included non-binding language suggesting the president rethink MFN for China.
It's only a "baby step" toward sparing Canada, Mexico and the European Union from steel and aluminum tariffs, as Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said, but 88 senators issued a rebuke of how the president has justified steel and aluminum tariffs under the guise of national security. Eleven senators -- all Republicans -- voted no, including both senators from Idaho, Wyoming and South Carolina. The last state could be badly damaged if President Donald Trump levies tariffs on imported auto parts under the same national security justification. Corker's home state of Tennessee also would be vulnerable if an auto parts tariff is implemented.
Canada's foreign ministry said July 10 that it welcomes the Department of Commerce's decision to revoke countervailing duties on Canadian supercalendered paper, as announced by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on July 6. The World Trade Organization circulated a panel report a day earlier that said the U.S. was not following international trade law in the way it had calculated the duties.
The U.S. Trade Representative is proposing an additional 10 percent tariff on 6,031 8-digit tariff lines -- about $200 billion worth of imports. Those who wish to testify for or against the inclusion of an item on the list must file by July 27, and written comments are due by August 17. Hearings will be held August 20-23. Senior government officials said a decision on tariffs will be made sometime after August 30.
Large-scale agriculture is one of America's competitive advantages, and farm exports are one of the top targets for tariffs in China, the European Union, Mexico and Canada. But Rob Johansson, chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said even though tariffs are high enough to disrupt sales, "at least in terms of short-run effects, you could see trade increasing." Johansson explained: "Markets will find a way." As China buys more soybeans from South American countries, such as Argentina and Brazil, U.S. soybeans will go to the markets Brazil and Argentina had been selling to. He said agriculture economists will be watching to see which tariffs are high enough to keep a product out of the market. Johansson was one of the experts discussing the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)-United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's 10-year agricultural outlook at a program in Washington on July 10.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on July 6 blasted a World Trade Organization ruling against U.S. countervailing duties on supercalendered paper from Canada (see 1807060024), saying Canada should have dropped the case because the Commerce Department will revoke the CV duty order. Lighthizer said Commerce terminated the CV duty order supercalendered paper on July 5, the same day as the WTO decision, at the request of the domestic manufacturer that originally requested the duties. No announcement from Commerce has yet been published.
The Philippine government said that the late May meeting between Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish and senior Philippine economic ministers and senators was laying the groundwork for the "scope, timing and process" that could lead to a free trade agreement between the two countries. A statement from the Philippine government released July 9 said the May talks "centered on America’s interest in initiating 'informal preparatory meetings'" that could be the beginning of FTA negotiations.
Nearly two weeks after the last batch of Section 232 tariff exclusion determinations were posted, the Bureau of Industry and Security posted eight more denials, all for Borusan Mannesmann Pipe in Texas, a Turkish-owned oil country tubular goods production facility.
The countervailing duties levied by the U.S. on two Canadian companies that make supercalendered paper relied on assumptions that were not justified, a World Trade Organization panel ruled July 5.