Japan

The U.S.-Japan trade agreement fully complies with World Trade Organization rules, Tokyo said last week after facing questions from several countries in Geneva.

The congresswoman also lamented that “In this current campaign season, the Republicans love to claim that a Democrat is somehow too close to China or a socialist.”

Jeffrey Gerrish, who until last month was the deputy U.S. Trade Representative for Asia, Europe, the Middle East and industrial competitiveness, said the U.S. and China to date have been able to resolve a slew of issues at the technical level without resorting to their phase-one deal’s enforcement mechanism.

Mobile crane imports primarily come from U.S. allies that do not pose national security threats, providing domestic consumers access to top-of-the-line infrastructure equipment, U.S. crane companies and foreign governments have told the Trump administration.

Japan remains one of the few major non-U.S. economies that has not signed up to the European Union-led stopgap appeals arrangement at the World Trade Organization, arguing on Wednesday that any interim plan must be established with an eye toward a long-term solution.

The U.S. on Monday backed Japan’s invocation of the World Trade Organization national security exception in a dispute with South Korea over semiconductor materials. The U.S. has cited the same provision in challenges to its steel and aluminum tariffs.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Toshimitsu Motegi this week affirmed a joint hope to reform the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement system and forge new e-commerce rules, according to USTR.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, like all other federal agencies, is adapting to life during a global pandemic that has radically overhauled how many work. But how, exactly, the new reality is affecting its operations is not known -- and USTR isn’t saying. 

President Trump this week decided not to impose Section 232 duties on titanium sponge imports despite the Commerce Department’s determination that they threaten national security.