Recent mass protests throughout Colombia have disrupted the movement of goods and impeded bilateral agricultural trade, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service said in a June 8 report. The protests, which began in April in response to a government tax reform bill, led to “major” losses for the country’s agricultural sector due to “road blockades and unrest,” USDA said. The issues are causing raw material shortages and damaging the country’s production and transport of food. USDA said that about 40 to 50 trucks of animal feed are reaching consumption centers from Colombia’s coastal seaport city of Buenaventura, down from the “normal daily requirement” of 250 trucks. Due to rising costs, the agency said, some shipments of feed grains are being diverted to other poultry and pork producing regions in Antioquia, Cundinamarca and Santander. USDA said U.S. agri-food companies that have invested in the Valle del Cauca region have “dramatically reduced operations.”
Argentina recently revised its labeling requirements to align itself with the requirements for textiles and apparel sold throughout the Mercosur trade bloc, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported June 7. The new requirements will take effect for importers and domestic producers on Sept. 28 but won’t impact retailers and “other parties” until March 31, 2022, HKTDC said. Once the requirements take effect, textiles and apparel that don’t comply may not be “definitively” imported into Argentina “unless the importer commits to correct the non‑compliance” and Argentina “issues an authorisation to adapt the label to domestic market requirements,” the report said.
Mexico recently revised its tax measures for certain sales of goods made abroad, KPMG said in a June 3 post. The measures, which affect manufacturing entities importing merchandise from abroad and operating under Mexico's export service program, will change how value-added taxes are assessed on those goods, KPMG said. Mexico will specifically repeal a rule that allowed the “disposal of the subsequent product” not to be subject to VATs if they were imported through a “temporary importation request.” The repeal takes effect July 8.
Argentina and Brazil recently made antidumping duty decisions on products from China, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported June 3. Argentina renewed for five years an antidumping duty on certain mainland Chinese “new pneumatic rubber tyres” used on bicycles. The goods will be subject to a minimum free on board export price of $7.03/kg.
Brazil added 397 items to its list of foreign capital goods and information technology and telecommunications goods subject to duty-free treatment under its Ex-Tarifario regime, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported May 28. The 327 added capital goods are classified in Harmonized System chapters 84, 85, 86, 87 and 90, while the 70 added IT and telecom goods are classified in chapters 84, 85 and 90. Duty-free treatment lasts through Dec. 31, 2021. Brazil also removed 24 items from the list, HKTDC said.
Canada criticized what it said is the U.S. intention to “significantly” raise duties on Canadian softwood lumber this year (see 2105180020), calling the move “entirely unjustified.” The measure would hurt consumers, companies and workers in the U.S. and Canada, said Mary Ng, Canada’s international trade minister, adding that the country plans to fight back against the duties on Canadian exporters. “We will keep challenging these unwarranted and damaging duties through all available avenues,” she said May 21. “We remain confident that a negotiated solution to this longstanding trade issue is not only possible, but in the best interest of both our countries.”
In a joint statement, Canada's trade minister, Mexico's economy minister and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said they reviewed USMCA committee work, noting progress and offering “recommendations for future work to maintain progress.”
Ahead of the first Environmental Committee meeting under USMCA, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments on topics that should be discussed, and advance questions for the public session of that meeting. The committee meeting will be June 17, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. EDT.
The Mexican ambassador to the U.S. publicized a letter he sent to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh asking for consultations under the Labor Chapter of USMCA over the treatment of agricultural and meatpacking workers. "Although at the federal level labor rights in the United States protect all workers, regardless of their immigration status, in practice, factors such as ignorance, fear and abuse by some employers prevent migrant workers from exercising fully their labor rights in some industries and states," Esteban Moctezuma wrote May 12. He complained that there is no federal regulation for heat stress, and that employers do not comply with rest and bathroom protocols for agriculture workers. He said that agriculture workers are excluded from general wage and hour laws that provide for overtime pay and the right to organize and bargain collectively. Specifically, he said, undocumented workers don't have access to ask for reinstatement to jobs or payment of lost wages under the U.S. labor laws. And he said that officials overlook sexual harassment and violence in both sectors. "For the aforementioned reasons, the Government of Mexico considered it necessary to point out the importance of adequately enforcing its federal regulations to guarantee the labor rights of workers in the agricultural and meat processing and packaging industries in the United States," he wrote.
Canada last week updated its model Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, which will serve as the basis for future investment negotiations and modernize the country’s rules-based environment for foreign direct investment. The model includes “additional transparency provisions” among the new requirements and standards.