The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of April 16 (some may also be given separate headlines):

Canada April 13 issued a guidance for companies doing business with Myanmar, outlining the sanctions and export control measures it has taken against the country and describing risks for industry. Canada stressed it will review sanctions and export permits case by case but will not issue licenses to sell arms or other defense related items to Myanmar if the exports could lead to human rights abuses. Companies should “conduct robust due diligence,” Canada said, including an examination of their supply chains to determine if their activities are supporting military-owned entities. “[W]e expect Canadian companies to uphold the highest standards of human rights and business conduct, whether they are doing business at home or abroad,” Mary Ng, Canada’s international trade minister, said in a statement. “We strongly recommend to any company operating in Myanmar or doing business with Myanmar-related entities to assess its operations and take appropriate action to uphold these standards.”

At a time when hurricane damage, violence and poverty are driving more Central Americans to the U.S., consultants, advocates and former diplomats say the Central America Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, needs changes to spur development in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Those Northern Triangle countries are the ones sending large numbers of asylum seekers to the U.S. in the last few years. Kellie Meiman Hock, a McLarty Associates managing partner who led the April 14 panel hosted by the Washington International Trade Association, noted that when CAFTA was ratified more than 15 years ago, the hope was that it would bring more economic development to Central America. But instead, trade from the region has been flat.

The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of April 12 (some may also be given separate headlines):

Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Canada recently made antidumping and countervailing duty decisions on certain products from mainland China, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported April 9. The duty decisions impact a range of imported Chinese goods, including blenders, machinery parts, solar modules, iron and steel products, sunglasses and more.

A coalition of environmental and community groups is opposing several proposed deepwater port fossil fuel export facilities throughout the Gulf of Mexico, declaring that the fuel terminals undercut the Biden administration's goals of beating back climate change. In an April 5 letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the groups decried the proposals, which would allow for terminals that could accommodate very large crude carriers (VLCC), which would “drive the global export of massive quantities of domestically-extracted crude oil.” Each of the “proposals has the capacity to load and export as much as 2 million barrels” of crude oil per day, the letter said. The more than two dozen signers, including the Sierra Club, Earthjustice and the Center for Biological Diversity, specifically call for the denial of the Sea Port Oil Terminal, Texas GulfLink, Blue Marlin and the Bluewater Texas VLCC crude export projects, along with all other pending deepwater port fossil fuel export licensing applications.

Canada plans to revise import restrictions for certain shipments of U.S. pet food, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service said April 1. The changes, which take effect April 13, will require pet food that is imported as “heat-treated” to “undergo temperature and time specific treatments based on the animal-origin ingredients,” USDA said. If the import doesn’t meet those requirements, the shipment must abide by Canada’s import conditions for “raw/minimally heat-treated pet food.” USDA added that Canada will no longer require import permits for raw and minimally heat-treated pet food after April 13.

The Alliance for Trade Enforcement, an umbrella group, joined by 18 business groups representing food and candy manufacturers, tech and telecom, energy, pharma and others, is asking U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to pressure Mexico to reverse some policies or not to pass others that it says violate the new free trade agreement.

The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of March 26 (some may also be given separate headlines):

Brazil's Economy Minister Lucas Ferraz said that two years ago, Brazil proposed to the other three countries in the Mercosur trade bloc that they should reduce the average tariff by half. It's currently 11.5%, and he said the Brazilian government believes it should be 6% to 7%.