The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices as of March 23 (some may also be given separate headlines):
The World Customs Organization issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The European Union recently issued the following trade-related release (notices of most significance will be given separate headlines):
In recent editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices as of March 21 (some may also be given separate headlines):
The United Kingdom will remain a part of the EU customs union during an "implementation period" that ends Dec. 31, 2020, the UK said in a draft agreement released March 19. The draft includes agreed upon language for "ongoing customs procedures." Both sides also agree to allow the UK to "sign and ratify new trade deals with old friends" that "will come into force when the implementation period is over," said David Davis, secretary of state for exiting the EU, in a news release. While the transition language is an important step forward toward the UK's exit from the EU, some contentious issues remain. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed," Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, said in a statement.
Canada has requested a panel be formed to settle its complaints over how the U.S. used differential pricing methodology to determine antidumping duties on softwood lumber, and its dispute on countervailing duties against the commodity, as well. This means the countries could not come to agreement during the consultations process. That item, among others, will be discussed at the March 27 dispute settlement body, according to an agenda posted at the end of last week. The United States will share a status report on its antidumping and countervailing duties against Korean washers, a dispute that started in 2014. On March 16, the U.S. said it is continuing to consult with interested parties on how to address the recommendations of the appellate panel on the tariffs. These consultations were an earlier attempt to deal with Korean imports, and different from the safeguard tariffs against Korean washers implemented to protect domestic industry under section 201 (see 1801230052).
The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices as of March 19 (some may also be given separate headlines):
The European Commission is seeking input from private parties on how an increase in customs duties on products from the U.S. in response to the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum from the EU would affect Europeans, it said in a notice. The EC is considering "suspension of tariff concessions under Article 8 of the [World Trade Organization] Agreement on Safeguards" and "imposition of increased customs duties on certain products," it said. "The Commission's intention is to ensure that applied additional customs duties are set at the appropriate level taking into account future developments," such as an exemption for the EU, it said.
The World Customs Organization's Harmonized System Committee is working to prepare for the next harmonized tariff schedule coming in 2022, the WCO said in a March 16 news release. The HSC recently met in Brussels and adopted "four sets of amendments to the Explanatory Notes and approved 36 new Classification Opinions, and just one Classification Opinion was deleted," it said. Also, "as part of the work to prepare the Seventh Edition of the HS (HS 2022), 30 sets of amendments to the Nomenclature were adopted." The committee "took 275 classification decisions (251 of which related to pharmaceutical products (International Nonproprietary Names, INN))," WCO said.