After France began sending collection notices to internet companies last week for its new Digital Service Tax, according to a report in Financial Times, the U.S. and France seem headed for a collision course on taxes and tariffs. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has identified $1.3 billion worth of imports -- primarily handbags and cosmetics -- that would be hit with a 25% tariff, but delayed collecting them since France also delayed implementing the DST (see 2007130043).

A Finding Nemo story and picture book doesn't meet the classification requirements for heading 4903, which covers “Children’s picture, drawing or coloring books,” CBP said in a Sept. 15 ruling. CBP previously ruled that the book wasn't classifiable as a children's book and the company, Phidal Publishing in Montreal, requested reconsideration of that ruling. CBP's earlier ruling found the book to be classifiable in heading 4901 for “printed books.”

The International Trade Commission will recommend leaving in place current safeguard tariffs on large residential washers, it said in a Nov. 25 news release. The tariff rate quota, in place since 2018, “continues to be necessary to prevent or remedy serious injury to the U.S. industry,” and “the domestic industry is making a positive adjustment to import competition,” the ITC said.

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.”

Just as the recent flood of Section 301 litigation had appeared to slow to a trickle, importers added more than two dozen more lawsuits last week to the multitude of cases currently before the Court of International Trade. But while the new complaints restate the same arguments made by thousands of other plaintiffs in the sprawling litigation, many of the new cases differ in that they seek to invalidate only List 4 tariffs, excluding List 3 from the requests.

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Nov. 16-20 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

Parties wishing to appear at a Dec. 29 online hearing on alleged Vietnamese currency manipulation must make a request to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative by Dec. 10, including a testimony summary. The Section 301 investigation will examine how the intervention in exchange rates in Vietnam burdens American commerce. After the hearing, rebuttals can be submitted until 11:59 p.m. Jan. 7, 2021.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said there should be “a reset of our trade agenda,” with less emphasis on tariffs “and more emphasis on international cooperation and multilateral relationships.” Neal, who was speaking to the New England Council on Nov. 23, said that “keeping the heat on China is important, but simultaneously, tariffs are not the only way to do it.”

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.

The U.S. is "initiating new guidelines" to no longer allow imports from the West Bank or Gaza to be marked as “West Bank/Gaza,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in a Nov. 19 news release. The changes are meant to “ensure that country of origin markings for Israeli and Palestinian goods are consistent with our reality-based foreign policy approach,” he said. Under new guidelines from State, the marking requirements for the West Bank and Gaza will recognize those places as “politically and administratively separate,” it said. State didn't say when the changes take effect.