For starters, both the U.S. and U.K. default tariff rates (UK calls their most favored nation default rate their “global” tariff rate) are already low. The Global Tariff averages at 6%, while the U.S. tariff averages at 3.4% across all product lines. Auto imports have a tariff of 2.5%. Pharmaceuticals are tariff-free. Read the article.

The U.S. trade deficit swelled in January to a record, reflecting pickups in the values of imported capital equipment and consumer goods as well as crude oil. The January gap in goods and services trade widened 9.4% to $89.7 billion, Commerce Department data showed Tuesday. The U.S. imported just 3% of its crude from Russia … Read More

Feb. 4. China signs a 30-year gas supply deal with Gazprom to build a new pipeline. And a 10-year oil supply deal with Rosneft. Feb. 25. China lifts all restrictions on Russian wheat imports. Read the article.

The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) today released a statement after LG Electronics Inc. announced it was exiting the global solar panel business, a decision that will impact 160 employees and roughly 60 contract workers at LG’s corporate campus in Huntsville, Alabama, where the company has been assembling solar panels since 2018. Read the … Read More

The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) today released a statement after LG Electronics Inc. announced it was exiting the global solar panel business, a decision that will impact 160 employees and roughly 60 contract workers at LG’s corporate campus in Huntsville, Alabama, where the company has been assembling solar panels since 2018. Read the … Read More

Paraguay’s oilseed processors are lobbying the government to allow duty-free soybean imports for the first time in order to keep their mills running as a drought slashes local production. Read the article.

Free trade has been getting a bad name. The political landscape that has supported free trade for decades, however, has shifted significantly in recent years, and not only in the United States. Protectionist currents are sweeping across every part of the world. Well into the 20th century, protectionism was standard practice for many nations. In the United … Read More

India banned the import of drones, a move that effectively blocks an emerging market for China’s SZ DJI Technology Co., the world’s top dronemaker, and encourages a nascent local industry to ramp up production. Read the article.

The World Trade Organization said the U.S. violated international trade obligations in the way it imposed tariffs almost four years ago on South Korean exports of residential washing machines, according to a ruling published Tuesday. Read the article.  

The bill, Import Security and Fairness Act (H.R. 6412), will narrow an import loophole, known as de minimis, that is used by non-market economies and counterfeiters to ship hundreds of millions of packages valued under $800 into the United States without inspection, information disclosure, or duty payment. Read the article.