Editor’s note: The exact timing and procedure of voting on the USMCA remain unclear. Ordinarily it would be next year, but it could be this year.  The U.S. International Trade Commission on Friday launched an investigation into the likely economic impacts of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a key element of the process — and timing —…

Editor’s note: Sen. Baldwin is correct to place the focus on currency. We will need to fix not only manipulation but the overly strong dollar though the market access charge. Sign the petition here.  Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is urging the administration to label China a currency manipulator in a biannual report slated to be released…

Editor’s note: Looks like Mexico may risk upsetting the USMCA by negotiating with China sometime after their new president takes office. Despite a provision in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that poses a “hurdle,” Mexico is “quite likely” to open trade talks with China over the next few years, the chief NAFTA negotiator for the incoming Mexican…

Former Nucor Corp. CEO Dan DiMicco stoutly defended the Trump administration’s aggressive foreign trade policy and tariffs at a metals convention Thursday in Charlotte. When a worried manufacturer asked how long the tariffs would last, the often prickly DiMicco declined to offer much comfort. [John Downey | October 12, 2018 | BizJournals]  “This issue is not going…

Editor’s note: 1) First time in history that Treasury staff leak results of currency report before publication. Why, we might ask? 2) Focus upon “manipulation” must give way to focus upon massive and economically destructive dollar overvaluation which the US can fix without permission from any other country. It is our currency, we print it,…

Editor’s note: China’s Central bank has management of exchange rates and the current account balance as part of its job. Our central bank does not. Our market access charge bill would change that, adding exchange rate management to the Fed mandate with tools to achieve a current account (trade) balance. Federal reserve staff has wrongly stated…

Editor’s note: CPA supported the bill to strengthen controls on incoming foreign investment. The rules are now being written for implementation.  The Treasury-led interagency committee will now require foreign investors to alert it to all deals giving them access to critical technology across 27 industries—including semiconductors, telecommunications and defense—that the committee believes could threaten U.S.…

Editors note: another case of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs coming in from China. Most active pharmaceutical ingredients come from China, having moved out of the USA. China’s Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical for years enjoyed the upside of the U.S. pharmaceutical market, selling its valsartan API to drugmakers producing blood pressure meds for the market. Now it is seeing…

Editors note: Evasion of tariffs through misidentifying tariff codes is not new, but this article is very helpful to focus on the problem. One day in June, seven months after the U.S. imposed stiff tariffs on plywood from China, a wood importer in Oregon got a call from a supplier asking if he would like to…

Editors note: this is an important report that we have been waiting for. It will be the start of moving our defense industrial supply chain away from reliance on strategic competitors like China. Beijing’s “trade dominance” and willingness to use trade as a “weapon of soft power” is putting the U.S. manufacturing and defense industrial…