Congress needs to act to help prevent a looming major rail strike that could disrupt freight movement and back up supply chains, more than 400 trade associations said in a Nov. 28 letter to congressional leadership. The letter, signed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, the Agriculture Transportation Coalition and others, said the “uncertainty” surrounding a potential rail disruption “has created enormous anxiety” in the industry.
Companies based in China’s Xinjiang province recently signed deals with companies located elsewhere in China to export Xinjiang-origin food products that are made with forced labor, said Kharon, a risk data and risk management software company, in an alert Nov. 21. Chinese news reports coming out of an expo held in Xinjiang’s capital in September indicate Xinjiang Tianyun Organic Agriculture Co., Ltd., a fish farming and processing business that has participated in so-called “poverty alleviation programs,” an indicator of forced labor, signed an agreement with Dalian Rich Enterprise Group “intended to substantially increase international distribution of Xinjiang salmon,” Kharon said.
National Retail Federation CEO Matthew Shay said Congress needs to "intervene immediately to avoid a rail strike and a catastrophic shutdown of the freight rail system." His statement was released Nov. 21, after news that a fourth union has rejected a tentative agreement between the railroads and 12 unions that work for them. “American businesses and families are already facing increased prices due to persistent inflation, and a rail strike will create greater inflationary pressures and will threaten business resiliency," he said. There is a cooling off period that ends Dec. 8, and Shay said Congress must step in before then.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says "it’s critical that legislation to renew the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB) and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) not get lost in the shuffle" during the lame duck session, as Congress tries to find a way to pass funding for the federal government.
The National Milk Producers Federation told the chairmen and ranking Republicans on the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees that they do not support an extension of tariff waivers on either imported baby formula or the inputs to make formula.
Alba Wheels Up recently acquired San Francisco-based customs brokerage KSI, the company said in a news release. “One of the largest independent customs brokers in the Bay Area with strength in customs clearances for the biotech and semiconductor industries,” KSI’s headquarters in San Francisco will now become Alba’s fifth office, alongside existing offices in Los Angeles, Houston, Jersey City and Valley Stream, New York, Alba said.
If the U.S. position on calculating the regional content of automobiles prevails in a USMCA state-to-state dispute, Baker McKenzie associate Eunkyung Kim Shin predicted, companies would be likely to import more parts used to assemble the automobiles. Shin, who spoke at a Baker McKenzie webinar Nov. 15, said that when the entire value of a part counts toward the vehicle regional content threshold once that part meets its own rule of origin, it makes sense to build the part in Mexico, the U.S. or Canada. But if the non-local content of those parts is not disregarded when doing vehicle-level calculations, it might be cheaper just to import the parts from a lower-cost country, she said.
The relationship between trade and green industrial policy is in tension, but Washington International Trade Association webinar panelists also said both supporting domestic interests and imports is unavoidable as the U.S. moves to reduce greenhouse gases.
The establishment of a “more practicable enforcement regime” for the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act “needs to be front and center” for the U.S. government, Clearway Energy Group CEO Craig Cornelius said on an earnings call Nov. 2. Speaking during a call held to discuss third quarter earnings by subsidiary Clearway Energy Inc., Cornelius said the government needs to put ports in a position to handle the “dramatic” quantities of equipment that will need to enter the country to meet climate goals and the needs of the power grid.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's John Murphy said that manufacturers are some of the biggest supporters of free trade deals because half their goods are exported.