Reimposing Section 232 tariffs on Canadian aluminum “would be a major mistake,” National Foreign Trade Council President Rufus Yerxa said June 24. “It would completely undermine the spirit of our newly-negotiated” U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and “reignite trade tensions with our biggest trading partner. It will also hurt the most dynamic U.S. manufacturers in sectors like autos, food products and construction, all in a vain effort to prop up inefficient domestic aluminum producers by branding Canada a national security threat.” He said the administration should recognize that levying taxes on aluminum from Canada “would undermine our credibility as a reliable trading partner, not just with Canada, but with other potential free trade partners like the U.K. and Japan.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Aluminum Association reacted with dismay June 23 to a Bloomberg report that the U.S. could re-impose 10% tariffs on Canadian aluminum on July 1, because of an alleged surge in imports since tariffs were lifted. The U.S. trade representative told senators last week that he is in consultations with Canada on the issue.
The U.S. in April imported more laptops and tablets than in any previous April in the category's history, according to Census Bureau data accessed June 15 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. It was clear evidence of the surge in demand for work-from-home and remote-learning productivity tools after COVID-19 forced much of the U.S. into sudden lockdowns.
The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America will use Sandler Travis as its new customs counsel, the NCBFAA said in a June 16 news release by email. Lenny Feldman will serve as lead counsel within the firm, it said. Sandler Travis and Feldman replace Grunfeld Desiderio and Alan Klestadt, who were the NCBFAA's customs counsel for more than a dozen years, the association said.
Germany is benefiting from both its use of partial unemployment and its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and manufacturers in electronics, machinery and equipment and the auto sector are back to pre-crisis levels, according to Ludovic Subran, chief economist of Allianz. Subran, who was speaking on a June 9 webinar on globalization hosted by the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said German firms will have an edge over those in other countries that didn't keep workers employed during the shutdown measures taken to control the spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Sharply reduced April imports of the largest TVs were the result of COVID-19 factory shutdowns in Mexico, where the supply chain for big-screen sets predominantly resides, according to newly released Census Bureau data accessed June 6 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered the closure of nonessential factories and businesses on March 31.
The COVID-19 pandemic's impact on major U.S. retail container ports “appears to be easing slightly,” the National Retail Federation reported June 8. Projected imports through September are expected to remain below 2019 levels but not as low as forecast a month ago, it said: “It may still be too soon to say but we’ll take that as a sign that the situation could be slowly starting to improve. Consumers want to get back to shopping, and as more people get back to work, retailers want to be sure their shelves are stocked.” U.S. ports handled 1.61 million 20-foot-long cargo containers or their equivalents in April, NRF said. That was down 7.8% from a year earlier but up 17% from the four-year low in March and significantly better than the 1.51 million containers previously forecast. NRF estimates ports handled 1.58 million containers in May, down 14.6% year over year, but up from the 1.47 million containers forecast a month ago, it said. It’s forecasting June port activity will be 1.56 million containers handled, which would be down 12.9% from 2019, but up from the previous forecast of 1.46 million.
Employees from the global trade management software company GTKonnect will join EY member firms in the U.S. and India, the companies said in a news release. “The transaction is part of EY global trade management services expansion,” EY said. Terms of the deal weren't released. “Global trade is undergoing a seismic change as tariff wars, protectionism, regulatory uncertainty and now a pandemic, disrupt established business models and trade relationships,” said Kate Barton, EY global vice chair - tax. “Organizations are struggling to respond and find it increasingly difficult to address their supply chain ecosystems, focus on operational costs and, ultimately, define their medium-to-long-term strategies. We are excited to further expand EY global trade managed service offerings through this strategic transaction.”
A Mexican federal official, along with Mexican and U.S. attorneys, believe that Mexican firms will have to sharply change their labor relations policies, but they aren't as sure about how often labor issues will be brought up, in the context of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. If the U.S. government doesn't agree that a Mexican company has come into compliance with Mexican labor laws, it could lead to goods from that producer being barred from USMCA tariff benefits.
Even as COVID-19 delays some advances in trade facilitation -- such as being able to use a single window to export into Canada -- the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement has good news for it, panelists said during a Dickinson Wright webinar May 28.