Forgot password?
Sign up today and your first download is free.
REGISTER
President Trump on Thursday said that he may not agree to finalize amendments to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement until an undefined “deal” is made with North Korea, despite an agreement in principle between the U.S. and South Korea being reached days ago.
Key trade advocates on Capitol Hill are viewing the amended U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement as a positive pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, while industry groups question how the pact's revised changes would be implemented in meaningful ways.
Mexico's ruling party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, last week pitched a proposal that would implement the country's constitutional labor reforms passed last year in a way that labor advocates believe would undermine labor rules that will potentially be included in a retooled North American Free Trade Agreement.
Japan’s legislature is expected to ratify before the end of its session
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has pitched to his NAFTA counterparts a new automotive rule of origin methodology that would count wages equivalent to $15 an hour towards the regional value content of a car, sources close to the talks told Inside U.S. Trade.
After seven months of amendment talks, the United States and South Korea last Friday reached an agreement in principle that includes an extended tariff phaseout for Korean trucks, a product-specific quota to limit Korean exports of steel to the U.S., as well as a deal on currency, sources said.
President Trump on Friday said the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement is “very close to being finished,” adding Korea's exclusion from the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs lends leverage to trade talks in general.
“It is transformative in terms of the way the Treasury Department is dealing with this. My hope is that we end up with language that deals with transparency and deals with competitive devaluations.”
“Japan is clear; what the next tier [is], we have to come to grips with that.”
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Wednesday defended his approach to investor-state dispute settlement in the face of strong criticism from House Ways & Means Committee members -- including Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX), who bluntly told the USTR that Congress was his “client” in the NAFTA talks.
“The maneuvering regarding steel and aluminum and those exemptions may be a leverage point that could help [the] NAFTA negotiations move along as well.”
China: “No one will emerge a winner from a trade war.”
“We shouldn’t make up a national security clause as a way to try to do something when there’s specific bad action by China that we can resolve through mechanisms that already exist in a rule-of-law order.”
Members of Congress on Friday will receive from more than 800 civil society groups a fresh set of recommendations for what lawmakers should demand in a new NAFTA, according to a letter obtained by Inside U.S. Trade.
The U.S. and South Korea will hold a third round of talks to discuss the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement on Thursday in Washington, DC, the Korean Trade Ministry announced on March 13, and sources say the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum will play a prominent role in the discussions.
The chairmen of the Senate Finance and House Ways & Means committees will tell U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer he is seriously risking the chances that a NAFTA 2.0 will make it through Congress if he does not revise his approach on investor protections.
Under scrutiny: How the deal “will affect American workers and America’s interests in the Indo-Pacific region.”