On October 11, 2019, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) opened its electronic portal for petitions seeking temporary import duty suspensions and reductions in accordance with the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act of 2016. The ITC will accept these petitions until December 10, 2019 (see Trump and Trade Update of October 1, 2019). This process allows companies that can show they are likely beneficiaries of a suspension or reduction of import duties to submit petitions…

A World Trade Organization (WTO) arbitrator has ruled that the United States may take countermeasures/implement retaliatory tariffs against the European Union (EU) concerning “adverse effects” arising from EU subsidies provided to Airbus. The arbitrator determined that the United States may request authorization from the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) to take countermeasures at a level not to exceed $7,496,623 million annually. This ruling relates to a long-running dispute between the United States and the EU…

In a series of notices, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) granted exclusions from Section 301 tariffs for certain imported Chinese products on List 1 (valued at $34 billion), List 2 (valued at $16 billion and List 3 (valued at $200 billion). Products on these lists currently face a 25 percent Section 301 tariff, which is scheduled to increase to 30 percent on October 15, 2019. List 1 – Tariffs on Products Valued…

In September, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) continued to tighten its sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, and addressed a sanctions-evading scheme for Syria involving several Russian entities. Iran: On September 20, 2019, OFAC announced that it was designating the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), the National Development Fund of Iran (NDF) and Etemad Tejarate Pars Co. for their ongoing support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), its Qods…

In what has been called a “mini-trade deal” or the “first stage” of a broader trade agreement, the United States and Japan have reached agreement in several areas of trade between the countries involving market access, reduced tariffs and digital trade. President Donald Trump announced that Japan will be liberalizing market access for certain U.S. agricultural goods and that the United States will be reducing or eliminating tariffs on the import of certain industrial goods…