President-elect Joe Biden announced Dec. 10 that he's selecting House Ways and Means Committee Chief Trade Counsel Katherine Tai to be the next U.S. trade representative, saying that her deep experience will allow the administration to “harness the power of our trading relationships to help the U.S. dig out of the COVID-induced economic crisis and pursue the President-elect’s vision of a pro-American worker trade strategy.”
The United Kingdom and Egypt signed an agreement to strengthen trade ties between the two countries and continue preferential trade access after the U.K. leaves the European Union at month's end, the U.K. said Dec. 5. The deal will provide tariff-free trade on industrial goods and liberalize trade in agriculture and fisheries, which will “make trade easier and deliver significant savings to businesses in both the UK and Egypt,” the U.K. said. “This agreement is a clear signal of the U.K.’s enduring commitment to our close bilateral relationship with Egypt and will help strengthen trade and investment ties in the future,” U.K. Trade Secretary Liz Truss said.
Former House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, and a former Democratic congressman both say that trying to return to the Trans-Pacific Partnership can't happen in the medium term. Boehner and former Rep. Joe Crowley of New York were speaking on a Meridian International Center online program Dec. 4. Boehner said that “without Trade Promotion Authority, the administration's hands will be tied” on joining the TPP. He said it would be “a pretty tall ask” to get TPA renewed in 2021. “I think there will be engagement” on trade with Asian countries other than China, he said, adding: “I think it will be pretty small.” Crowley agreed, saying that although the incoming Joe Biden administration seems inclined to multilateral trade approaches, “TPP, it's a big, big, big step. I don't see that happening in the first two years.”
President-elect Joe Biden won't remove Section 301 tariffs until he makes a full review of the phase 1 agreement and consults with Japan, South Korea and Europe “so we can develop a coherent strategy,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman reported Dec. 2. Biden said free-market countries need more leverage to “actually produce progress on China’s abusive practices,” such as illegal subsidies to corporations, forced tech transfers and stealing intellectual property.
The United Kingdom updated a range of guidance documents relating to its trade agreement with Japan. The U.K. released Nov. 30 new information on how trade with Japan will change starting Jan. 1, 2021, provisions for small and medium-sized business, changes to product-specific rules and details on the tariff rate quota scheme.
The United Kingdom and Malaysia held the first meeting of their joint trade and investment committee Nov. 24. The committee, aiming to boost trade ties that will enhance future cooperation and investment, commissioned six working groups to work on easing market access between the two countries, particularly around wine and spirits. Natalie Black, the U.K.’s trade commissioner for the Asia Pacific, said the relationship has “the potential for significant further growth.”
Former U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said that although President-elect Joe Biden has signaled that trade is not a priority for him, he is unlikely to be able to put it on the back burner completely until the COVID-19 crisis and economic recession are resolved. “Trade is going to come to them even if they don’t necessarily want to go to trade,” she said during a Peterson Institute for International Economics Trade Talks interview Nov. 24. When Biden is at a G-7 or G-20 meeting, and other heads of state bring up trade, “What are you going to do? Say, 'I'm not going to do trade for the next two or three years'? So, you can’t underestimate what happens when [India's] Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi wants to talk to you about trade. Or [China's President] Xi Jinping wants to talk to you about trade. Or [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel wants to talk to you about trade.”
The United Kingdom and Indonesia held the third round of a joint trade review (see 2007270013) and discussed increasing trade, including in agricultural products, food and beverages, technology and pharmaceuticals, as well as “the creative economy,” the U.K. said Nov. 19. The third round of discussions, completed Nov. 19, brings the two nations closer to issuing a joint report recommending trade measures to increase cooperation. Cathryn Law, the U.K.’s director of bilateral trade relations, said both sides hope to complete the review “soon“ with an “agreement to further enhance our bilateral trade and investment across a range of key sectors.”
The United Kingdom and Canada will roll over their existing trade deal into 2021 and will begin negotiating a new agreement after the U.K. officially leaves the European Union Jan. 1 (see 2011230001), the U.K. said Nov. 21. The U.K. said the two sides will negotiate a “more ambitious” deal next year. The agreement to continue the existing provisions “will support the British automotive manufacturing and food and drink industries which between them provide jobs for more than half a million people across the UK,” the announcement said. It is foundational to a new deal that “will be tailored for the British economy with the potential to go further in new areas like digital trade, women’s economic empowerment and the environment.”
Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden's choice for secretary of state, has said that the Section 301 tariffs on China and Section 232 tariffs on Europe “harm our own people,” according to coverage of a U.S. Chamber of Commerce talk he gave in September. “We would use tariffs when they’re needed, but backed by a strategy and a plan,” he added. Blinken, who served as deputy secretary of state under President Barack Obama, said, “The EU is the largest market in the world. We need to improve our economic relations, and we need to bring to an end an artificial trade war that the Trump administration has started,” Reuters reported from the Chamber talk.