Before the U.S.-China trade war began, all countries that exported goods to China faced an average 8 percent tariff, according to a recent analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. But now, U.S. exports to China are taxed on average at 20.7 percent, while German, Asian and Canadian producers are facing an average tariff of 6.7 percent.
While the Chinese have not levied tariffs on U.S. aircraft, the top manufactured good China imports from the U.S., that could change if President Donald Trump follows through on his May 5 threat to hike 10 percent tariffs to 25 percent, one expert believes. Edward Alden, a trade expert and professor at Western Washington University, said that the Chinese have been seriously negotiating for five months, and if the U.S. walks away, they will hunker down for a long, protracted trade war. They could levy tariffs on airplanes, increase customs hassles for those U.S. firms exporting goods to China and create geopolitical trouble for the U.S.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, speaking in Beijing to a group of 5,000, including 37 countries' prime ministers, presidents and vice presidents, said that China will continue to reform its economy in a number of ways, and that it intends to increase imports of good and services. According to an official English translation of the April 26 speech, Xi said, "China is both a global factory and a global market. With the world's largest and fastest growing middle-income population, China has a vast potential for increasing consumption. To meet our people's ever-growing material and cultural needs and give our consumers more choices and benefits, we will further lower tariffs and remove various non-tariff barriers."
Rep. Vern Buchanan, the Florida Republican who's ranking member of the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, is co-sponsoring a bill that would impose sanctions on companies that make and send fentanyl to the U.S. Buchanan, joined by Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., introduced the bill April 10. The bill, H.R. 2226, notes that the Treasury Department used the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act to sanction a synthetic opioid trafficker in April 2018, but says "precision economic and financial sanctions policy tools are needed to address the flow of synthetic opioids." The bill is a companion to a bipartisan Senate bill introduced earlier in the month by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. (see 1904040028). It would require the administration to publicly identify the companies that are selling fentanyl to dealers, bar imports of any kind from those companies, freeze their assets, deny visas to its officials and cut them off from the U.S. banking system. Congress would dedicate $600 million for investigations to uncover which companies are responsible.
A bipartisan bill that would prohibit importation, exportation and interstate trade of bear viscera or products advertised as containing bear viscera was introduced in the House of Representatives on April 10. Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.; Rodney Davis, R-Ill.; Ann Kuster, D-N.H.; and Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., co-sponsored H.R. 2264. The Bear Protection Act of 2019 says, "thousands of bears in Asia are cruelly confined in small cages to be milked for their bile, and the wild Asian bear population has declined significantly in recent years, as a result of habitat loss and poaching due to a strong demand for bear viscera used in traditional medicines and cosmetics." It also said that while most American black bear populations are stable or increasing, some bears have been poached for their viscera, and if that commercial trade grew, it could threaten American bear populations.
President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. will not ratify the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. Trump made the announcement during a speech at a National Rifle Association of America event on April 26. The White House said the treaty "cannot achieve its chief objective of addressing irresponsible arms transfers if these major arms exporters" -- including Russia and China -- "are not subject to it at all." The U.S. signed onto the treaty in 2013, but it was never ratified by the Senate as required. "The United States export controls have long been considered the gold standard for engaging in responsible arms trading and we will continue to use them under our own laws," the White House said.
Clete Willems, former deputy director of the National Economic Council who represented the U.S. during China trade talks this year, will join Akin Gump as a partner in June, the firm announced April 25. “The trade landscape has rarely been as important to companies around the world as it is now, and Clete will be an invaluable resource for clients seeking to navigate this terrain,” said Brian Pomper, co-head of Akin Gump’s public law and policy practice.
Canada and Colombia were removed from the priority watch list for intellectual property violations, and Tajikistan moved off the watch list, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's annual review of countries' policies on patents, trade secrets, counterfeits and piracy. Saudi Arabia was moved up to the priority watch list because of deteriorating conditions there, including "rampant satellite and online piracy," a USTR official said April 25.
Dozens of agriculture trade groups and companies wrote to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to tell him that "the U.S. food and agriculture industry is increasingly disadvantaged by competing regional and bilateral agreements with Japan that have already been implemented, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the European Union-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EU-Japan EPA)."
Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Martha Barcena, speaking April 22 at the Georgetown Law School conference on U.S. ratification of the new NAFTA, implored: "We need USMCA not to be taken as a political hostage. We need USMCA to be taken in its own merits." She also said, "We should not let politics stand in the way of free trade that has yielded benefits for both of our societies."