President Donald Trump said the U.S. did not agree to lift tariffs on China as part of the first phase of the trade deal, contradicting comments from China’s commerce ministry. “They'd like to have a rollback,” Trump told reporters Nov. 8. “I haven't agreed to anything,”
Exports to China
NEW YORK -- The U.S. and China are intertwined, and revealing how deeply that is true is the silver lining of the trade war, according to Dr. Huiyao Wang, president for Center for China and Globalization, a Chinese think tank. Wang said the West mischaracterizes forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft and favoritism toward Chinese companies within China. He said that the American Chamber of Commerce in China is pleased about how the new IP protection law is going to be implemented, and he asked if forced technology transfer is such a burden, why don't you hear companies publicly complaining about it.
China recently clarified upcoming procedures for obtaining export value-added tax refunds, according to a Nov. 7 post from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. China specified that general VAT taxpayers may claim tax credits or export VAT refunds through the online “VAT invoice confirmation platform of their home province,” the report said. VAT payers with a Customs Bill of Payment “with information relating to multiple VAT payers” should first upload all documentation “for verification by the tax authorities," HKTDC said. The procedures are scheduled to take effect Feb. 1, 2020.
China and U.S. agreed to lift tariffs in stages as they progress in trade talks, China’s Ministry of Commerce said during a Nov. 7 press conference. “If the two parties reach the first phase agreement, they should cancel the tariffs that have been imposed according to the content of the agreement,” a Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said, according to an unofficial translation. “The trade war starts with the addition of tariffs and should also be terminated by the elimination of tariffs.” The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not comment.
The World Trade Organization cannot negotiate trade liberalization, and trade distorting agricultural subsidies are getting worse, not better, said Aluisio de Lima-Campos, chairman of the ABCI Institute, the Portuguese acronym for Brazilian International Trade Scholars. He was leading a panel Nov. 5 at American University, the end of a daylong trade symposium co-sponsored by ABCI.
China will again allow imports of beef and pork from Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a Nov. 5 tweet. China stopped accepting the meat from Canada earlier this year after China said it found falsified veterinary health certificates (see 1906260053). China Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang confirmed the announcement during a Nov. 6 press conference. "The Chinese Customs and the Canadian competent authority have been in close communication on this matter and working for a solution," he said. "Recently Canada proposed an action plan as a corrective measure for certificate issuance and delivery. After reviewing it, we believe this plan will meet our safety requirements and agree to accept veterinary health certificates for meat products exported to China issued by the Canadian authority."
The United Kingdom has been “far too slow” in imposing unilateral sanctions against human rights abusers and should appoint a senior official responsible for implementing sanctions policy, Britain's House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said in a Nov. 4 report. The report, which was the committee’s second of 2019, makes several sanctions-related recommendations to Britain's Foreign Commonwealth Office and is critical of the country’s approach to sanctions. The committee asked for updates to its suggestions by May 2020.
The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of Nov. 6 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):
One panelist said it will take 20 years to know who are the winners and losers of today's tariffs and export restrictions. Another panelist said U.S. factory workers making washing machines and solar panels are clearly winning from the safeguards launched nearly two years ago, as are Vietnam and Mexico. Another panelist said Vietnam and Thailand, and Mexico to a much lesser degree. As moderator Lucas Queiroz Piers said, “It is a confusing moment." The Alston & Bird legal consultant was coordinating a panel called "U.S. Sanctions and Trade War: Winners and Losers," at an American University Washington School of Law International Trade Symposium on Nov. 5.
China and Thailand agreed on several measures to increase trade, including an enhanced railway system and improved cooperation in agricultural trade, according to a Nov. 5 report from Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency. The two sides agreed to “expand cooperation in agricultural trade” and e-commerce as well as in auto, medical equipment and rubber sectors, the report said. The countries also plan to build the China-Thailand railway “into a successful example in bilateral cooperation” and “speed up the implementation of the railway project.”