The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee said the delay in extending the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and passing a new Miscellaneous Tariff Bill “has real consequences for our businesses and families, especially right now.”

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the U.S. has made progress on combating illegally trafficked timber in trade agreements and regional dialogues, and that global rules on that issue and on subsidies that lead to overfishing can be achieved. She also suggested that she could help negotiate global rules for agriculture related to carbon capture and the use of cover crops.

The Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods imposed under President Donald Trump had “a significant impact” on Panasonic North America, Jeff Werner, vice president-corporate and government affairs, told the Consumer Technology Association virtual Innovation Policy Summit April 14. “We did everything we could to sort of mitigate that, including a robust use of the exclusions process,” he said.

The briefing schedule in the massive Section 301 litigation inundating the U.S. Court of International Trade will end Nov. 15, said an order signed April 13 by the three-judge panel of Mark Barnett, Claire Kelly and Jennifer Choe-Groves. It was a small victory for Akin Gump lawyers for sample case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products, which had asked in their joint status report April 12 for the Nov. 15 deadline (see 2104130036). The Department of Justice wanted a Dec. 23 deadline, saying it feared attorneys in the 3,700 stayed cases would file a large volume of amicus briefs that the government would need time to respond to.

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 Office of Management and Budget should restart consideration of a proposal to end the de minimis exemption for goods subject to Section 301 tariffs, the National Council of Textile Organizations said in an April 14 letter to acting OMB Director Robert Fairweather. The review of the proposal began at OMB last year (see 2009040026) but was removed as part of a broad regulatory freeze after President Joe Biden took office (see 2101210039). OMB should reopen the review and “grant approval to this much needed change in CBP regulations,” NCTO said.

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from April 5-9 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

Broad disagreement separates the HMTX-Jasco plaintiffs from the government in the massive Section 301 litigation over the issue of whether importers who prevail on the merits of the case would be entitled to tariff refunds on customs entries for which liquidations become final, according to a joint status report filed April 12 with the Court of International Trade.

The government is not trying to trip up importers by obscuring which exporters have been targeted under a withhold release order, a former top CBP trade official said, but the Trade Secrets Act prohibits CBP from releasing manufacturer IDs when the seizure was done under a regional WRO, as with Xinjiang cotton.

Two South Korean companies that make lithium-ion batteries in the U.S. have reached a settlement to end a case at the International Trade Commission that had led to an import ban on SK Innovation for theft of trade secrets (see 2102120021). The settlement was announced April 11, which was also the deadline for the White House to say if it would overrule the ITC. If the import ban had remained, SK Innovation had said it would not be able to continue plans for a large battery plant in Georgia, which will supply domestic electric vehicle production at Ford and Volkswagen. LG Energy Solution is in a joint venture with General Motors in Lordstown, Ohio, building a plant to produce vehicle batteries.