Last week, the U.S. Department of Commerce and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) each requested comments on negotiating objectives for the Biden administration’s proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (“IPEF”). For businesses with economic interests in the region, this is an excellent opportunity to connect with the agencies responsible for negotiations.
By way of background,
On Monday, October 4, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai delivered a long anticipated speech framing the Biden Administration’s trade policy toward China.
Among the announcements made were that (1) a Section 301 product exclusion process would be “restarted” with respect to the tariffs currently in effect, and (2) additional enforcement actions against China could be
Following our reporting earlier this week on the Section 301 determinations regarding digital services tax (DST) measures in India, Italy, and Turkey, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has today issued additional findings regarding DSTs in Austria, Spain, and the United Kingdom. USTR issued reports regarding each country and notices of affirmative conclusions
On July 10, USTR published a notice of action in the Section 301 investigation of France’s digital services tax announcing the imposition of additional 25 percent duties on certain products from France covering an estimated $1.3 billion of trade. The additional tariffs are effective January 6, 2021, pursuant to a 180-day suspension period.
A comprehensive
In July, France signed into law a tax, which targets companies with high digital revenues such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon. On Monday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) announced the conclusion of an investigation into France’s digital tax under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (“Section 301”). The USTR found
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has announced a hearing date and related deadlines for review of certain countries’ ongoing eligibility under the United States’ Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program. We previously wrote about these GSP reviews here, which may result in the United States’ decision to suspend duty-free GSP benefits
On October 28, 2019, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced plans to begin considering extensions of up to one year for certain previously-granted product exclusions from Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports. From November 1 – November 30, USTR will accept comments for or against product exclusions that are set to expire December 28, 2019.
The relevant product exclusions were granted December 28, 2018 in USTR’s initial set of exclusions from Section 301 duties on Chinese imports that took effect July 6, 2018. The 25 percent tariff covered more than 800 tariff lines, representing approximately $34 billion in annual trade value. In its December 28 action, USTR granted exclusions for more than 1,000 specific products classified within a tariff-covered 8-digit HTSUS subheading.
USTR subsequently issued seven more rounds of product exclusions from its July 6, 2018 tariff action (all expiring one year from the date of publication in the Federal Register) and continues considering exclusion requests for subsequent tariff actions. While additional extension request opportunities are anticipated going forward, the current opportunity only covers exclusions granted on December 28, 2018.
As detailed in a draft Federal Register Notice, USTR will evaluate the possible extension of each exclusion on a case-by-case basis. USTR has indicated it will focus its evaluation on whether the product under consideration remains only available from China. USTR will also consider whether additional duties would result in severe economic harm to U.S. interests. Additionally, USTR has asked commenters to address:
Continue Reading USTR Begins Process to Consider Extending Certain Section 301 Product Exclusions
On October 18, the United States Trade Representative announced an exclusion process for products included on China Section 301 List 4A, which covers $300 billion of imports. Imported products on this list are presently subject to an additional 15 percent duty, which went into effect September 1, 2019.
Importers of products on List 4A
At the WTO General Council’s meeting this week in Geneva, the debate over developing country rights at the WTO came to a head. The United States has recently been especially outspoken in its criticism of developing country status for WTO members, which entitles the declared developing country to certain exemptions, longer timetables for implementation of commitments, and other flexibilities under WTO agreements to assist with integration into the world trading system – generally known as “special and differential treatment.” Special and differential treatment provisions are found in virtually all WTO agreements, ranging from commitments to increase trade opportunities for developing country members, to requirements to protect developing country interests, to rules allowing for flexible implementation, transitional time periods, and technical assistance. For example, developing countries may extend for two additional years their own safeguard actions to restrict imports causing injury to their domestic industries, and are generally exempt from the application of other members’ safeguard actions. Since the WTO’s creation in 1995, however, the WTO has not specified any criteria or process for determining developing country status, allowing members to self-declare their status without meeting any analytical requirements.
According to the United States, this lack of discipline has led to unpredictable and illogical results, with some of the world’s wealthiest and fastest developing (in terms of economic, social, and other indicators) – and often most trade-distorting – countries putting themselves as the same category as the WTO’s least-developed members in order to strategically or uniformly avoid additional commitments. Some of the examples cited by the United States of those WTO members seen to be unreasonably declaring themselves as developing include China, India, Singapore, Israel, Mexico, Turkey, Chile, Indonesia, South Africa, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. As the United States explained in a WTO communication issued in February 2019:
Simply put, self-declaration has severely damaged the negotiating arm of the WTO by making differentiation among Members near impossible. By demanding the same flexibilities as much smaller, poorer Members, export powerhouses and other relatively advanced Members . . . create asymmetries that ensure that ambition levels in WTO negotiations remain far too weak to sustain viable outcomes. Members cannot find mutually agreeable trade-offs or build coalitions when significant players use self-declared development status to avoid making meaningful offers. Self-declaration also dilutes the benefit that the {least-developed countries} and other Members with specific needs tailored to the relevant discipline could enjoy if they were the only ones with the flexibility.
The United States’ February communication also proposed that the General Council adopt a new approach that would preclude special and differential treatment “in current and future WTO negotiations” for countries that fall into at least one of four categories: members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); one of the G20 countries; classified as “high income” by the World Bank; or account for “no less than 0.5 per cent of global merchandise trade (imports and exports).”
Continue Reading Developing Country Status Up for Debate at WTO
Last April, the United States Trade Representative (“USTR”) initiated an investigation to enforce U.S. rights stemming from a World Trade Organization (“WTO”) ruling concerning the European Union’s (“EU”) provision of illegal subsidies on the manufacture of large civil aircraft.
In the notice initiating that investigation, USTR proposed imposing additional ad valorem duties of up to
