The European Commission on June 4 set up a new surveillance tool to shield the EU against "sudden and potentially disruptive surges in imports." The tool provides the commission with "fact-based information building on customs data," enabling it to take action against import surges that occur when a "significant amount of goods that cannot enter other markets due to high tariffs and other restrictions are redirected into the EU."
President Donald Trump got the phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping he'd been seeking, and Trump wrote on social media that "there should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products."
A bipartisan Russian sanctions bill that would also target countries still doing certain business with Moscow may hurt Russia in the short term but also could further damage U.S. trade talks with China, said Nicholas Burns, U.S. ambassador to China during the Biden administration. And while Burns said he’s glad the Trump administration has maintained sanctions against Chinese companies for selling sensitive microelectronics to Russia, he said the U.S. likely will never be able to convince China to stop supporting Russia’s defense industrial base.
Joseph Barloon, who was a general counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative during Donald Trump's first term, told Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., that he believes in rules-based trade.
A law firm said May 23 that the U.S. was failing to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act partly because it was relying on a “novelly broad” interpretation of the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 1:24-02733).
At least three companies last week disclosed receiving letters from the Bureau of Industry and Security informing them of new license restrictions they must follow for certain exports to China, including two semiconductor design firms and one oil company.
The World Trade Organization released the agenda for the June 5 meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body. The meeting is held to exclusively consider Canada's request for a dispute panel in its case against Chinese import duties on certain agricultural and fishery products from Canada.
The EU and the United Arab Emirates formally launched negotiations on a free trade agreement, the European Commission announced this week. Their first meeting, set to begin as early as next month, will center on "reducing tariffs on goods and facilitating services, digital trade and investment flows," the commission said. The negotiations also will look into ways to boost trade in strategic sectors. The UAE is the EU's 19th-largest trading partner in goods.
The Democratic leaders of two key House committees said this week they’re “deeply concerned” about the Bureau of Industry and Security potentially pivoting away from traditional export control dialogues with allies and asked BIS to respond to oversight questions before the end of next week.
Members of the EU Parliament's Committee on International Trade are in Washington this week to discuss political, trade and investment relations between the U.S. and the EU. The delegation, led by committee Chair Bernd Lange of Germany, will hold meetings May 27-29 with various U.S. agencies, lawmakers, business groups, trade union representatives, think tanks and academia. They will specifically talk about "how the tariffs imposed by the US administration are being applied, how business is adapting to the tariffs and how can EU-US trade tensions be eased moving forward," Parliament said.