Following a decisive win by the conservative party in a recent UK General Election, on December 20th, 2019 the UK House of Commons approved the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) governing the UK’s departure from the European Union (EU). In parallel, the bill was approved by European Parliament on January 29th, 2020.
Topics: Europe, Free Trade Agreements
On November 27, 2019 Customs uploaded the final version of the new CTPAT Minimum Security Criteria (MSC) into their webpage and the CTPAT Portal. This is the culmination of a three-year effort to update the CTPAT criteria to fulfill legal mandates, adjust to a changing trade landscape, apply lessons learned, and adapt to ever-evolving terrorism and criminal threats.
Topics: CTPAT, North America
The EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement went into effect on November 21st, 2019. This is the European Union's first bilateral trade agreement with a Southeast Asian country. This agreement removes tariffs in trade between the EU and Singapore.
Topics: Europe, Asia, Free Trade Agreements
On December 6th, 2019 the United States Trade Representative (USTR) proposed the imposition of up to 100 percent ad valorem additional duties on a preliminary list of products from France. These include cheese, cosmetics, handbags, sparkling wines, porcelain, and enamelled households articles, the list can be found here.
Topics: Europe
Parliament in the United Kingdom is currently debating approval of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) that outlines a potential future relationship between the United Kingdom and European Union after Brexit.
The UK has requested that the European Union extend the Brexit deadline to January 31, 2020, in order to properly scrutinize this bill. Additionally, the Prime Minister has called for a general election to occur in December, if an extension is granted.
Topics: Europe
