Gerassimos Thomas, director-general for taxation and customs union at the European Commission, said American observers of the carbon border adjustment mechanism are wrong to focus on the lack of a U.S. cap and trade or carbon tax when thinking about how the CBAM will affect U.S. exporters. The main threshold exports to the Euopean Union have to reach is if the goods are made with the same amount or less carbon intensity than EU-produced goods, he said during an online program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, The CBAM will only apply to steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizer and electricity, not to finished products made with these goods.
China dwelled on trade more than the U.S. did in the countries' respective summaries of the more than three-hour call between their presidents. But one think-tank author said China would like the tariffs to go away, "but will not pay too much to make it happen."
Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., along with 22 Democrats and Republicans from Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to press Indian government officials to lower their 36% tariffs on American pecans when she meets with them this week. "As you may know, American pecan producers have faced many challenges due to rising imports from Mexico, Chinese tariffs, natural disasters like Hurricane Michael, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Gaining access to new markets for pecans will help ease the pain while orchards are replanted and as we push China for full implementation of its obligations under the U.S.-China Economic and Trade Agreement," they wrote. They said that pecan production contributes $3.57 billion to the "economies of the 15 pecan producing states in the United States."
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with Trade Minister Hagiuda Koichi Nov. 15, and talked about strengthening supply chains, export controls and cooperating on digital technologies -- and talked about how to cooperate to confront excess capacity in steel and aluminum. Japanese exports of steel face a 25% tariff in the U.S., and after the U.S. agreed to tariff rate quotas on steel with Europe, Japan asked to get a similar deal.
A new dwelling fee on containers at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports should not be passed on to importers, said Noel Hacegaba, chief operating officer of the Port of Long Beach. Hacegaba was speaking to the U.S. Fashion Industry Association virtual conference, during a Nov. 10 panel on the supply chain.
The former minister counselor for trade affairs in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing told an audience that in the last few years, Chinese government officials "feel like they've outflanked us on the trade front." James Green, who was speaking on a Flexport webinar on the future of U.S.-China trade policy, said that officials were pleasantly surprised that the tariffs on most exports to the U.S. did not hurt their economy more. And, he said, between sealing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and applying to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, they also feel like they have other options for exporting when things with the U.S. sour.
Rep. Suzan DelBene, chair of the generally pro-trade New Democrat Coalition, told a webinar audience that reaching an international agreement to lower tariffs on environmental goods and services would be good for U.S. companies, since the U.S. has lower tariffs on these goods than the European Union and China. She said that the European Union and China both export more environmental goods than the U.S. does.
The bipartisan infrastructure package that passed the House Nov. 6 will dedicate $17.4 billion to ports, Coast Guard facilities, inland waterways, and land ports of entry, and flood and environmental projects from the Army Corps of Engineers, with much of the funds expected to be spent over a three- to five-year horizon.
Ahead of a planned trip to India Nov. 22 by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, the Alliance for Trade Enforcement is asking her to make sure that the U.S.-India Trade Policy Forum "eliminates significant trade barriers in India to expand economic opportunities for U.S. workers and businesses."
Bernd Lange, chair of the European Union parliament's committee on trade, said that though it may be tricky to do so -- given that the EU and other countries have different ways of encouraging cleaner industry -- the EU's proposed carbon border adjustment measure should not be a way to just hike tariffs. "We have to avoid trade wars," he said to reporters in Washington Nov. 4. He said if another country does not have a cap and trade system and doesn't have a price on carbon, that doesn't mean they don't have climate change measures. "So we need to find equivalencies," he said.