The Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade (TRACIT) thanked the champions of the Inform Consumers Act after it was included in the year-end spending bill on Dec. 23, saying it "is a critical element in the fight against the online sale of counterfeit and stolen products," but noting that the group still wants movement on Stopping Harmful Offers on Platforms by Screening Against Fakes in E-commerce Act, or Shop Safe.
B.I.G. Logistics has acquired Xcell Logistic Services and Xcell Logistics Corporation for an undisclosed amount, it said in a Dec. 20 news release. The third-party logistics provider (3PL) and warehouse management IT platform with warehouses in Texas and along the Mexican border gains in Xcell Logistic Services a 3PL and customs broker with warehouses in Laredo, Texas. Xcell Logistics Corporation “has offices in key Mexican ports, industrial hub cities and border crossings with the United States,” B.I.G. Logistics said. Together, “the companies offer pharmaceutical-licensed, 3PL cross-dock and temperature-controlled warehouses, fulfillment, transload, border brokerage, container examination station (CES), operate and manage Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) facilities and light manufacturing and e-commerce services,” the release said.
The Inflation Reduction Act creates opportunities for more North American economic integration, according to a Mexican diplomat and a top General Motors official.
The American Action Forum said it is disappointed that the Democrats are using the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill as bargaining chips to get Trade Adjustment Assistance restored. The lobbying group called TAA controversial, and wrote, "In short, members trade new free trade agreements and new markets for this contested aid program, not common-sense tariff elimination." The AAF said it seems unlikely that the "grand bargain" sought by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, that would wrap all four of those issues and antidumping reform into one package, can get on the omnibus, which could be passed next week. "It’s time for Congress to stop holding GSP and MTB hostage to its usual bartering and allow these programs to get back to saving Americans money," the group wrote Dec. 13.
The United Autoworkers, responding to a British university report that the auto parts industry is tainted by Uyghur inputs (see 2212060054), said its members' employers need to make sure their supply chain does not include goods from Xinjiang.
Clarification: A Roth Capital analyst said that JinkoSolar modules detained on suspicion of forced labor "may have just been released" by CBP, and the analyst believes "this could result in a ramp up of volume and imports.” JinkoSolar “likely has a substantial amount of Hoshine WRO & UFLPA backlog to get through,” the analyst said (see 2212050039).
A Roth Capital analyst said that JinkoSolar modules detained on suspicion of forced labor "may have just been released" by CBP, and the analyst believes "this could result in a ramp up of volume and imports.” JinkoSolar “likely has a substantial amount of Hoshine WRO & UFLPA backlog to get through,” the analyst said.
The Commerce Department’s recently announced preliminary findings of circumvention for Southeast Asian solar imports (see 2212020064) were “in line if not slightly positive vs. consensus” with expectations, BofA Global Research said in a report released Dec. 2. Most companies are eligible for antidumping and countervailing duty rates “well below” the high China-wide rate for solar cells, and companies that were found not to be circumventing AD/CVD account for substantial capacity, BofA said. “Hanwha and Jinko retain 2.3 / 7.1GW of module capacity in Malaysia, Boviet retains 1.5GW in Vietnam, and New East holds 900MW capacity in Cambodia. Critically, this in theory provides a very strong bridge on module supply through to 2024 noting Jinko and JA have further build out of wafer in SE Asia which would also be outside the scope. Inclusive of 10GW of capacity from [First Solar], we see several viable options for US supply constraints to ease,” the report said.
The Sierra Club and the Trade Justice Fund say that the EU and the U.S. should agree on a Climate Peace Cause, because otherwise, trade disputes could slow the progress of reducing carbon emissions. The two groups, in a white paper published Dec. 1, noted that Japan and the EU successfully challenged a Canadian program that supported renewable energy, and the U.S. and India each successfully challenged buy local rules for solar energy. "Trade scholars are already questioning the trade legality of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and ... [t]he European Union and South Korea, among other countries, have threatened a trade case against the tax credit for electric vehicles and other measures included in the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act," the paper said.
More than 250 importers, large and small, and 27 trade associations asked Congress to renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program this month, and if that can't be done, to pass a bill that would refund tariffs paid on GSP-eligible imports that entered between Jan. 1, 2021, and Aug. 31, 2022. The letter, sent Nov. 30, notes that tariffs that have been paid while the program has been expired is the highest amount ever, at more than $2 billion, and if GSP is not renewed, it will be the first time it was gone for a full two years. The last time GSP expired, at the end of 2017, it was less than four months before it returned; when it expired in 2013, it was gone almost two years (see 13080110).