Trade Policy

Late on September 30, 2018, the United States and Canada reached a new trade agreement (the USMCA) that addresses many of the contentious issues that delayed Canada from rejoining the countries’ trilateral trade agreement (NAFTA).

In a joint statement, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that the new agreement “will give our workers, farmers, ranchers, and business a high-standard trade agreement that will result in freer markets, fairer trade and robust economic growth in our region. It will strengthen the middle class, and create good, well-paying jobs and new opportunities for the nearly half billion people who call North America home.”

On September 27, 2018, Senators Marco Rubio (R) and Bill Nelson (D) introduced legislation that would give producers of seasonal fruits and vegetables standing to seek trade remedy relief. The proposed bill would amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to expand the criteria needed for petitioners to have standing to request the imposition of antidumping or countervailing duties.

On September 17, 2018, USTR finalized a list of 5,745 imported products from China (referred to as “List 3”) for which additional tariffs are to be collected starting September 24, 2018 at a rate of 10 percent, rising to 25 percent starting January 1, 2019. The value of List 3 goods is estimated at approximately $200 billion. The Federal Register notice for this announcement was published on Friday, September 21, 2018 and differs somewhat from the Section 301 tariff announcements previously published for List 1 and List 2.

On September 20, 2018, President Trump released a 16-page Executive Order which delegated various Presidential powers established under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (“CAATSA”) to both the U.S. Secretary of Treasury and the U.S. Secretary of State.  As a result of this delegation, the U.S. Treasury Department‘s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) and the U.S. State Department are now empowered to take actions which include (but are not limited to) designating parties to be sanctioned under various CAATSA provisions, selecting the specific menu-based sanctions to be imposed upon those parties and implementing those menu-based sanctions (we previously covered the CAATSA statute here, here and here).  OFAC also updated its website to provide an additional FAQ response explaining the new Executive Order and indicating that it anticipates promulgating regulations to implement these sanctions.

On Tuesday, September 18, 2018, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced a process for obtaining product exclusions from the 25% tariffs on certain products imported from China as a response to the Section 301 investigation on China’s trade practices.