Canada will again impose additional temporary import requirements for U.S.-origin romaine lettuce, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said in a report this month. The requirements, which Canada also has imposed in previous years (see 2109280034 and 2308070019), will allow Canadians to import romaine lettuce from the Salinas Valley counties of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey or San Benito only if the lettuce tests negative for “E. coli O157:H7.” The requirements will be in effect Sept. 26 through Dec. 28.

Canadian traders should prepare for increased scrutiny from the country’s customs agents for a range of imports in the coming months, and should consider conducting an “internal compliance review” to make sure they’re complying with all duties and trade laws, Baker McKenzie said in a July 25 client alert.

The Canadian press noted that Canada is working to convince officials that might serve in a future Trump administration to spare Canadian goods from a global 10% tariff, but former U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer, who recently traveled to Canada, has said Canada won't necessarily be exempted.

The Canadian Industrial Relations Board could reach a decision by Aug. 9 on what types of rail service should continue at Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) in the event of a union-led work stoppage, USDA said in a July 18 report. The agency said CIRB may intervene “to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public.” Union members with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, the union representing over 9,000 workers at CN and CPKC, had said in early May that members had voted to strike at both railways over a labor agreement impasse (see 2405060029).

Certain shipments of animal products and byproducts exported from Canada and then returned to the country unchanged may need an import license as of July 10, the country said.

Almost three years after environmental groups asked the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to ask the tri-national Commission on Environmental Cooperation to establish a formal factual record of Mexico's failure to enforce its ban on gillnets in the Upper Gulf of California in Mexico (see 2108130052), that commission will begin such a fact-finding mission.

Canada this week began a review to decide whether it will extend its antidumping and countervailing duties on certain imported silicon metal from China, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal announced. The Canada Border Services Agency is expected to decide by Nov. 21 whether there will be a “likelihood of resumed or continued dumping or subsidizing” if the duties were to expire. If CBSA reaches a “positive determination,” the tribunal will decide by April 30 whether that dumping or subsidizing “is likely to result in injury to the domestic industry." The country last extended the duties in 2019.

Canada's Trade Minister Mary Ng, under questions from parties to the left and right of her Liberal party, as well as the Québécois party, said the fact that there are outstanding disagreements between Canada and the U.S. on U.S. trade remedies on softwood lumber, on auto rules of origin and on Canadian dairy import restrictions does not mean that Canada will get big-footed in the free trade review.

A Costa Rican court on June 4 restored lower 3.5% to 4% tariffs in the country on imports of milled and rough rice, overturning an April court ruling that had put higher 35% tariffs in place (see 2404250057). The decision “dramatically erodes” preferential access for U.S. rice exports under a tariff-rate quota negotiated in the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, the Foreign Agricultural Service said in a June 12 report. “Earlier hopes for higher U.S. rough rice exports to Costa Rica in 2024 evaporated before a single shipment could reach Costa Rican ports.” However, FAS doesn’t expect the “stunning reversal to be the final word in this political tug-of-war,” as the lower tariffs “pose an existential threat to the majority of Costa Rican rice producers.”

The trade is watching whether more than 9,000 Canada Border Service Agency workers will go on strike on Wednesday should the impasse on labor contract negotiations continue.