The Monthly Horizon

Compliance

As September brought a pause in new tariffs, it provided an opportunity to clarify how “capped” tariff programs will function under trade agreements with the EU and Japan. Further guidance has been issued on other parameters of the agreements with the introduction of Annex III, which outlines a list of HTS codes that may be excluded from reciprocals for a given country as part of the finalization process.

Tensions with China continue to rise as new Section 232 investigations—this time including robotics—are launched, while trade negotiations remain stalled. The leaders of both nations are scheduled to meet in late October in South Korea, ahead of the November deadline for a possible change in the reciprocal rate. Meanwhile, China has added six U.S. parties to its “unreliable entities” list, citing their ties to Taiwan—an issue central to China’s trade priorities.