International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for June 22-26 in case they were missed.
President Donald Trump on June 30 released the annexes to Presidential Proclamation 10053, including provisions to implement the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, scheduling it for publication in the July 1 Federal Register. Among the annexes are new General Note 11 to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which lays out USMCA rules of origin. The proclamation also adds new special program indicators (SPIs) “S” and “S+” throughout the tariff schedule for goods eligible for USMCA treatment. These changes take effect July 1.
Countries that do not guarantee women's equal protection under the law, protect women from discrimination in hiring, or stop violence and sexual harassment at work should not be able to export products duty free under the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said. Their bill, introduced June 18, would amend the GSP program with these conditions (see 2006230053).
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for June15-19 in case they were missed.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said that there's “a good chance” that the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, will be renewed in Congress before it expires at the end of the year. He said to International Trade Today that the only controversy around GSP is that India was removed because it wasn't “living up to other things we want.”
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told two senators concerned about retaliatory tariffs in India that the U.S. is working on restoring India to the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, but that it's slow going. “We’re in the process of restoring it if we can get an adequate counterbalancing proposal from them,” he told Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who had complained that American apples are now taxed at 70% in India because of Section 232 tariffs on metals from that country.
Lawmakers should act quickly to renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program before it expires at the end of 2020, more than 200 companies and trade associations said in a June 16 letter to the leaders of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees. “Further uncertainty about whether companies will have to pay millions of dollars a day in new taxes in January 2021 is the last thing the American business community needs,” they said.
Any future Section 301 exclusion renewals will only last until the end of the year, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told the House Ways and Means Committee as he testified June 17 about the administration's trade agenda, adding that “they will decide what happens after that.”
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for June 1-5 in case they were missed.
Rep. Ron Kind, one of the leading pro-trade voices in the Democratic caucus, told the Washington International Trade Association that Trade Promotion Authority will not get a renewal vote this year. The legislation, which allows fast-track approval of trade agreements, is good through June 30, 2021. “That might be a reach too far, here in this election cycle,” he said in an online interview with WITA on June 3. “I think we’ll have to wait and see how the dust settles in November.”