Meetings between Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jayme White and Ecuador's trade minister, Julio Jose Prado, focused on the U.S. desire for Ecuador to improve its agricultural import licensing system, and Ecuador's concern that the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program has lapsed. A joint statement from the two countries released Feb. 18 said they recognized Ecuador is improving efforts to battle illegal fishing, preserve forests and wildlife, fight climate change and marine debris, and end child labor. It said the U.S. discussed next steps to renew the GSP.
Australia’s Parliament officially began considering the text of the Australia-U.K. Free Trade Agreement this week and is inviting public comments on the deal, Australia said Feb. 8. The Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties will accept submissions through March 18. The deal is the first trade agreement negotiated from scratch by the U.K. since it left the European Union, and is expected to drop tariffs on a range of goods (see 2112170016).
The deputy U.S. trade representative whose portfolio covers Asia and Africa acknowledged that it may be more challenging to get buy-in from countries for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework without the carrot of lower U.S. tariffs, but she said corporate support will help negotiators get agreement.
A readout of U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai's meeting with South Korea's Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo said Tai noted "strong concerns" among U.S. steel producers, and said the U.S. is not ready to expand "conversations to develop a global arrangement that addresses the carbon intensity of steel and aluminum trade." She said she emphasized the challenges of global overcapacity driven by non-market practices. Tai said she updated Yeo on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and discussed the need to cooperate in addressing global supply chain issues. They agreed to work together to promote resilient supply chains.
A global look at foreign trade agreements discussed how many major economies are moving toward more liberalization while the U.S. stands still on previously launched FTA negotiations. Baker McKenzie lawyers shared their insights on the opportunities and compliance concerns under FTAs in a webinar Jan. 25. Adriana Ibarra-Fernandez, a Mexico City, Mexico attorney, talked about Latin American FTAs, and noted that even though negotiations concluded after 20 years between Mercosur, which represents Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, and the European Union, the trade deal has not been approved in the various capitals, three years after the negotiations ended.
The U.S. and the United Kingdom this week began talks aimed at resolving their trade dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs (see 2112210051), the two countries said in a Jan. 19 joint statement. Although they didn’t release a timeline for the negotiations, the two sides will try to seek “effective solutions” for the Trump-era Section 232 aluminum and steel tariffs and the U.K.’s subsequent retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials that lead the group's international policy initiatives said again that the U.S. is wasting an opportunity by letting trade negotiations stall. The vice presidents in charge of Africa, Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Asia policy spoke on a Jan. 18 webinar that was a follow-up to the State of American Business program.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council should not be seen as a prelude to reentering talks for a comprehensive trade agreement, and she threw cold water on the idea of a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom as well.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, in a year-end video, pointed to a number of settlements during 2021 that both bolstered America's relationships with its allies and promoted the fight against climate change. She pointed to the settlement of a Section 337 case between two South Korean battery makers that allowed for a Georgia plant to open (see 2104120004); the settlement of the 17-year dispute over subsidies to Airbus and Boeing (see 2106150021 and 2106170025); and the agreement between the European Union and the U.S. to replace Section 232 tariffs with a quota system (see 2111010039).
Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union renewed their interim free trade deal until Oct. 27, 2025, or until a final agreement is reached and takes effect, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported Jan. 3. Iran and the EAEU in 2018 agreed to a three-year interim deal, which reduced customs duties on more than 800 categories of goods, including more than 500 Iranian exports and more than 350 EAEU exports, HKTDC said. Those goods account for about half of the trade under the deal, the report said, which has “grown significantly” since the interim deal took effect Oct. 27, 2019.