The European Commission this week officially adopted rules covering the transitional phase for its carbon border adjustment mechanism, which will eventually set new requirements on imports of electricity, fertilizers, hydrogen, steel, aluminum, cement and other items, including from the U.S. (see 2212130056). During the transition period, which launches Oct. 1 and runs through 2025, traders will be required to report on the emissions “embedded in their imports” that are covered by the mechanism, but they won’t have to pay any taxes.
A former Mexican economy secretary, Ildefonso Guajardo, who oversaw the NAFTA renegotiation, said Mexico's current administration has not complied with the energy provisions in the trade agreement, and has "tried to disrupt trade in corn, using excuses of sanitary issues" and genetic modifications. He said in both cases, the trade disagreements "have become part of the full political negotiation" that includes migration and also includes fentanyl and security issues.
India this week reminded companies that after Dec. 31 applications of non-preferential certificates of origin must be submitted through a new digital single window. The country’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade, which earlier this year had delayed the implementation date (see 2303290017), said in an Aug. 16 notice that a “few enlisted Agencies/chambers have still not started the process of on-boarding which defeats the purpose of initiating the online system.” The country is giving those agencies and chambers until Aug. 31 to “on-board” the new electronic platform, but companies can still submit paper certificates of origin through the end of the year.
American building materials supplier Construction Specialties Inc. (CS) reached a $660,594 settlement with the Office of Foreign Assets Control this week for allegedly violating sanctions against Iran. OFAC said the company’s United Arab Emirates subsidiary, Construction Specialties Middle East (CSME), illegally reexported more than $1 million worth of construction materials to Iran and falsified trade documents to hide their destination.
The Bureau of Industry and Security clarified rules surrounding two deemed export scenarios in a new advisory opinion issued in June and released publicly this week. The opinion said U.S.-based subsidiaries are allowed to release certain controlled technologies to their foreign parent companies’ employees -- when they are on temporary assignment in the U.S. -- if the American subsidiary already has an export license to ship the item to its parent company. BIS also said the U.S. subsidiary can use its export license to ship covered items to its parent company if the items were developed by employees on temporary assignment in the U.S.
The Commerce, State and Labor departments issued an updated South Sudan business advisory this week to highlight the risks U.S. companies, investors and others in the country are facing, particularly involving state-owned companies, which may have ties to human rights abuses or corruption. The advisory, updated from guidance issued last year (see 2205230062), comes months after the country saw an increase in fighting between two Sudanese military forces (see 2305040037).
Mexico's Foreign Affairs Secretary Alicia Bárcena, on her first trip to Washington, put USMCA first in her list of priorities, saying that in the less than 14 months left in the administration she is part of, she wants "to be able to bring certainty" in the NAFTA replacement, and to engage across all three countries in various sectors. "It's very important to consolidate this very important economic framework, and to make sure even if we are leaving in 13 months that this can remain as a powerful ... mechanism of trade and investment and economic development and partnership," she said at the Atlantic Council Aug. 10.
Citing a Financial Times report that Chinese artificial intelligence developers are evading controls on advanced semiconductors by using cloud services, members of the House introduced a bill to stop those practices, called Closing Loopholes for the Overseas Use and Development of Artificial Intelligence (CLOUD AI). The bill was introduced last month, and its text published this week.
The European Commission doubled the antidumping duties on optical fiber cables from China following an investigation that found Chinese exporters "were attempting to impede the effects of the original measures," the Directorate-General for Trade announced Aug. 9. The commission said Chinese optical fiber cable exporters deliberately dropped their prices to bar the effects of the original duties, in place since November 2021. The new duties on optical fiber cable entering the EU from China will range from 39.4% to 88% -- twice the original duties and "the maximum increase allowed."
Canada will again impose additional temporary import requirements for imports of U.S.-origin romaine lettuce, the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said in a report this month. The requirements, which Canada also has imposed in previous years (see 2109280034), 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. 28 through Dec. 20.