TradeLane

March and April were stressful for EU-based Trade Compliance professionals. The threat of a looming no-deal Brexit caused many of us to spend countless hours watching the news, waiting for concrete feedback on the future state of the UK-EU trading relationship. 

The dynamics of trade are changing.

Perhaps this is nothing new, trade has always evolved and changed, but I think we would be hard pressed to find an instance in modern peacetime when trade has been asked to adapt so quickly. TPP, Brexit, NAFTA, and steel tariffs, which would have been the biggest stories just months ago, are now muffled background noise to the rhetoric of a Trade War between two of the world’s most important economies.

While we wait for the US Administration to work out details on any potential trade deal with the EU, Turkey has moved to the forefront.

Section 232 steel duties on goods produced in Turkey will be doubled to 50% effective August 13^th  with an increase for aluminum duties to 20% still pending. Automobile and automobile parts duty increases are still being contemplated. 

Last year the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement had a few hurdles you may have heard about. However, it has been brought back to life with a few tweaks and fewer tweets.

So here it is…

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP or TPP11) was signed on the 8^th of March 2018 in Santiago and brings together 11 countries: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore, and Vietnam.

It was June 2007 when we first started hearing talk of the possibility of a trade agreement between Canada and the European Union. With the European Union being one of Canada’s largest trade partners, second only to the United States, many importers have been eagerly awaiting this trade agreement to become a reality. 

At last, on September 21, 2017, the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) was provisionally implemented.