India and Australia are on track to soon finish negotiating a free trade deal, the India Brand Equity Foundation said Dec. 31. IBEF, a government export promotion agency, said the deal is expected to be completed by the end of this year and will cover products, services, investment, origin rules, customs facilitation and other “legal and institutional problems.”

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Deputy USTR Sarah Bianchi spoke with Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa Dec. 21 about adjusting the level of U.S. beef exports that triggers a safeguard tariff, according to a USTR readout of the video call.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has 11 member countries since the U.S. backed out in 2016, has attracted four applications this year, from the United Kingdom, Taiwan, China and, most recently, South Korea. The U.S., which took a leading role in negotiating the high-standard free trade agreement, is unlikely to ask to come back in the next two years, panelists on a Hudson Institute discussion agreed.

Despite repeated lobbying and threats of tariffs on U.S. exports from Canada and Mexico, the Senate Finance Committee is proposing that a purchase credit for electric vehicles remain more generous for union-made, U.S.-assembled cars and trucks through 2026, and be reserved only for U.S.-made vehicles starting in 2027.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and the United Kingdom's Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said they want to consult on steel and aluminum early next year, "with a view to combating global excess capacity and addressing outstanding concerns on US tariffs and UK rebalancing measures," according to a U.K. readout of the visit Dec. 8. It said that Trevelyan invited Raimondo to London for those further talks in January.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai took a victory lap at the U.S Chamber of Commerce's Transatlantic Business Works Summit, pointing to the removal of the digital services taxes on American firms, the agreement on steel and aluminum and the resolution of a 17-year fight on subsidies for Airbus and Boeing.

Trade was barely touched on during the virtual meeting of President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Anna Ashton, vice president of government affairs for the U.S.-China Business Council. Ashton, who was speaking on a Nov. 23 Twitter panel hosted by Neysun Mahboubi, a research scholar at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Contemporary China, said that follows a pattern in the administration. She said that "they are unabashedly reframing the relationship… as a competitive one," which makes her wonder where the commercial relationship fits in. The recent panel was reacting to the earlier video call (see 2111160004).

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Indian Trade Minister Piyush Goyal agreed to continue working to resolve outstanding trade issues "to reach convergence in the near future," according to a joint statement released Nov. 23 at the conclusion of the India-U.S. Trade Policy Forum (TPF) in New Delhi. Both countries discussed wanting better treatment of their exports. "India highlighted its interest in restoration of its beneficiary status under the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences program; the United States noted that this could be considered, as warranted, in relation to the eligibility criteria determined by the U.S. Congress."

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she hears frequently from stakeholders about "market access restrictions, high tariffs, unpredictable regulatory requirements, and restrictive digital trade measures" in India, and said those are issues "where we need to make progress."

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Deputy USTR Sarah Bianchi stressed the importance of rapidly resolving trade concerns when they arise through the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, and talked about the president's vision for a new economic framework in the Indo-Pacific when they talked with Korea's trade minister, Yeo Han-koo. They agreed to communicate better to support trade facilitation, and to deal with supply chain challenges, emerging technologies and digital trade. According to the U.S. summary of the visit, Tai talked about the challenge posed by market-distorting excess capacity in steel and aluminum. According to the Korea Herald, quoting the Korean trade ministry, Korea asked for the chance to change the tariff rate quotas it earlier agreed to on steel. "We once again delivered our stance and concerns regarding the Section 232 rules, and demanded that the two sides begin negotiations at an early date," the ministry said in a statement. Tai and Yeo also heard from industry representatives on supply chain resiliency and how to foster more sustainable trade.