Talk of a potential “early harvest” partial deal on trade from Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) talks is a “little premature,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said during a call with reporters early on Sept. 19. In Cambodia for talks with Association of Southeast Asian Nations ministers, Tai said the U.S. is “coming into this with a lot of ambition, and again, a lot of motivation,” and is focused on making sure “that we are engaging robustly across all components of the trade pillar because all of them are important.” Tai said it remains to be seen “just how fast we can get to our deliverables,” but that the U.S. is “focused on speed, agility, and also on being practical.”

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai had a first video call with Japan's new trade minister, Nishimura Yasutoshi, ahead of an in-person meeting next week. "Ambassador Tai and Minister Nishimura reaffirmed ongoing collaboration to address non-market policies and practices, including economic coercion, and shared commitment to respect internationally-recognized worker rights, including eradicating forced labor," USTR's readout said. This followed a lower-level series of meetings, called the U.S.-Japan Partnership on Trade, where the U.S. said they discussed regulatory transparency, standards issues that are barriers to U.S. exports of products and services, and the U.S.'s desire that Japan buy more ethanol.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will meet with top government officials from countries participating in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity Sept. 8 in Los Angeles, USTR announced. This will be the first in-person meeting since the IPEF was launched. The ministers will talk about trade; supply chains; clean energy, decarbonization, and infrastructure; and tax and anti-corruption.

Singapore recently completed negotiations with South American trade bloc Mercosur that are expected to lower tariffs on a range of products traded between the two sides, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported Aug. 19. The deal includes reduced tariff commitments and initiatives to cooperate on intellectual property rights and competition policy, the report said. HKTDC said Singapore’s trade with Mercosur represents nearly half of its total trade with Latin America.

The U.K. and India recently completed their fifth round of free trade agreement negotiations and hope to conclude a majority of the talks by the end of October, the U.K. said this week. The latest round of negotiations featured “detailed draft treaty text discussions” in 15 policy areas.

The U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments at regulations.gov on what its officials should talk to Kenya about in the areas of:

Canada's trade minister, Mary Ng, announced that Canada will launch a USMCA dispute with the U.S. over the continued antidumping and countervailing duties on some Canadian softwood lumber exports.

In filings at the USMCA Secretariat, Mexico and Canada say the Uniform Regulations for USMCA are clear, and say that " roll-up applies to the calculation of [regional value content] RVC for a vehicle. It obliges Parties to take 'no account' of the non-originating materials contained in an originating good when that good is used in the subsequent production of another good."

Senior administration officials said that President Joe Biden didn't talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping about whether he wants to make any changes to tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese exports over the course of a two-hour call.

The U.S. should enter into a free trade agreement with the government of Taiwan "by the end of next year," former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said during a July 26 Atlantic Council webinar. The former secretary, now on the board of the think tank, went on to say that not only should the U.S. pursue an agreement with Taiwan, but that America should persuade its European allies to do the same, regardless of pushback from China.