Colombia recently raised its most favored nation duties on imports of certain apparel items, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported Jan. 6. The change will apply a 40% duty on apparel goods listed in Harmonized System chapters 61 and 62 but will not apply to certain items that were en route to Colombia prior to Jan. 7, the report said. The new duties are primarily aimed at mainland China and won’t affect apparel that qualifies for preferential duty treatment under a free trade deal or another arrangement, the report said, including apparel originating in the U.S. or the EU.

Canada recently released a proposal to strengthen and update its foreign direct investment reviews, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported Dec. 16. The proposal could lead to the “most significant update” to the country’s investment screening regime in more than a decade, the report said, and would establish a new filing requirement for investments in a range of “prescribed sectors,” including in cases in which the foreign investor would gain access to “sensitive assets, information, intellectual property or trade secrets.” The proposal also includes stronger penalties for noncompliance with the filing requirements and mitigation agreements.

The Inflation Reduction Act creates opportunities for more North American economic integration, according to a Mexican diplomat and a top General Motors official.

USDA is accepting applications from exporters for its upcoming trade mission in Panama, the agency said Dec. 12. The March 19-23 trade mission will allow U.S. agricultural exporters to meet with Panamanian buyers and other importers from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic -- participants in the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA-DR. "This is a perfect time to increase U.S. agricultural and food exports to Central America, where the rising incomes and a growing middle class in Central America are driving demand for consumer-oriented products and more,” said Daniel Whitley, USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service administrator. Applications are due Dec. 30.

Argentina, Brazil and Canada recently announced antidumping and countervailing duty actions and decisions on certain products from mainland China, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported Dec. 12.

Canada recently launched an Indo-Pacific strategy in an effort to “deepen” its “engagement” in Asia over the next decade. The strategy includes an initiative to expand trade and bolster supply chain resilience by establishing the Canadian Trade Gateway in Southeast Asia and creating the country’s first agricultural office in the region to help diversify its food exports. Canada said the new trade gateway will "provide a modern, dynamic environment for Canadian business leaders to meet as a community, identify common interests, leverage strengths and promote greater economic cooperation and innovation in the region."

USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service issued a report this week on U.S. ingredient exports to Brazil, detailing the “significant opportunities” for U.S. companies to supply Brazilian food makers “looking to meet the needs of a growing health-conscious consumer market.” The agency said there is “particularly attractive growth potential” for U.S. exporters of whey, milk albumin, casein, alternative proteins, flavorings, vegetable fats and frozen fruits.

If the U.S. position on calculating the regional content of automobiles prevails in a USMCA state-to-state dispute, Baker McKenzie associate Eunkyung Kim Shin predicted, companies would be likely to import more parts used to assemble the automobiles. Shin, who spoke at a Baker McKenzie webinar Nov. 15, said that when the entire value of a part counts toward the vehicle regional content threshold once that part meets its own rule of origin, it makes sense to build the part in Mexico, the U.S. or Canada. But if the non-local content of those parts is not disregarded when doing vehicle-level calculations, it might be cheaper just to import the parts from a lower-cost country, she said.

The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation in a series of four notices amended various entries under its sanctions regimes pertaining to North Korea, Myanmar, Russia and Global Human Rights.

The Dominican Republic is continuing to ban imports of U.S. poultry from states with “any type of detection” of highly pathogenic avian influenza, even if the outbreak was reported as “non-poultry,” USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said in a Nov. 8 report. USDA said DR officials “continue to hold to a different interpretation” of the section of the World Organization for Animal Health that defines poultry and non-poultry outbreaks, adding the Caribbean nation believes non-poultry detections “represent a high risk of disease transfer” to its domestic industry. But the DR is allowing imports of certain U.S. poultry on a case-by-case basis if the importer can provide a traceability certificate “that states the origin of all poultry flock processed within a facility,” USDA said. The agency also noted that all U.S. poultry exports require an import license from the DR through the “electronic VUCE system prior to shipment.”