Thompson Hine International Trade

Firm/Organization: Thompson Hine LLP
Blogs: Trump and Trade

Latest Articles

On March 12, 2019, Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), testified before the Senate Finance Committee regarding the World Trade Organization (WTO) and President Donald Trump’s desire for a more effective international trading system. In his prepared remarks, Ambassador Lighthizer stated that the United States remains active at all levels of the WTO but has concerns about it. “In many ways, the WTO is not working as expected,” he stated, noting that the negotiating…
On March 6, 2019, during a meeting of the Foreign Trade Commission of the Mexican Senate, Luz Maria de la Mora-Sanchez, Foreign Trade Undersecretary of Mexico’s Ministry of Economy, announced that the Mexican government is planning to include additional items on its list of U.S. products subject to retaliatory measures, which were originally imposed on June 5, 2018, in response to the U.S. government’s imposition of Section 232 tariffs on certain steel and aluminum imports…
On March 6, 2019, the American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance (Alliance) filed antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) petitions with the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) and the U.S. International Trade Commission (Commission) against imports of wooden cabinets and vanities from China. The Alliance consists of U.S. producers of wooden cabinets and vanities: ACProducts, Inc., American Woodmark Corporation, Bellmont Cabinet Co., Bertch Cabinet Manufacturing, The Corsi Group, Crystal Cabinet Works, Inc., Dura Supreme Cabinetry, Jim Bishop…
President Donald Trump has officially notified Congress of his intent to terminate the designation of Turkey and India as beneficiary developing countries under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program. Termination means that products from these two countries will no longer receive duty-free access to the U.S. market. Official removal of these countries’ designation under the GSP program can occur 60 days after the March 4, 2019, notification to Congress; removal is thus likely to…
On September 27, 2018, Titanium Metals Corporation (TIMET) filed a Section 232 petition alleging that the quantity or circumstances of U.S. titanium sponge imports threaten to impair national security. On March 4, 2019, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced that the petition had been accepted and an investigation initiated. Ross sent a letter to Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan informing him of the investigation in response to this petition, stating that the Department of…
In a Notice of Modification of Action published in the Federal Register on March 5, 2019, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) made official its earlier announcement (see Trump and Trade Update of March 1, 2019) that the Section 301 retaliatory tariff for the third tranche/list of products imported from China will remain at 10 percent until further notice. It remains a point of contention between Congress and USTR as to whether…
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has released President Donald Trump’s 2019 Trade Policy Agenda and 2018 Annual Report, detailing how the Trump administration’s trade policies “are benefitting American workers and contributing to the strongest economy in decades.” Claiming that the Trump administration “inherited a significantly flawed trading system,” the report states that the administration “took immediate and decisive action to implement a new trade agenda.” The USTR indicated that it “and…
On February 28, 2019, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) submitted to Congress and released to the public a summary of the Trump administration’s specific negotiating objectives for its United States-United Kingdom trade agreement negotiations. This follows the USTR’s notification to Congress on October 16, 2018, of the Trump administration’s intention to enter into negotiations (see Trump and Trade Updates dated October 17, 2018 and November 16, 2018), the submission of public comments – over…
At the direction of President Donald Trump and due to recent progress in trade negotiations with China, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced that the Section 301 duty rate for certain products imported from China “will remain at 10 percent until further notice.” While this announcement will be formally published in the Federal Register, a draft of the notice is available. On September 24, 2018, the Trump administration had implemented this 10…
On November 30, 2018, the United States, Mexico and Canada officially signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a proposed free trade agreement that, if approved by Congress and ratified by the governments of Canada and Mexico, would revise and modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Known as “NAFTA 2.0” during the trilateral negotiations, the USMCA is expected to be debated by the 116th Congress in the coming months as it considers legislation to…