Tag: trade

Shipping Snags Prompt US Firms to Mull Retreat From China

WASHINGTON—Toy maker Eric Poses created a card game last year he called The Worst-Case Scenario, a wry reference to the way the coronavirus had upended normal life. He had no idea. In a twist that Poses never could have predicted, his game itself would become caught up in the latest fallout from the health crisis:…


Aussie Lobster ‘Grey Trade’ Thrives as Smugglers Circumvent Beijing Bans

Chinese e-commerce platforms and wet markets are circumventing Beijing’s unofficial ban on Australian lobster imports by offering the popular delicacy for sale to Chinese consumers. Driven by strong demand, the lobster “grey trade” is thriving, with importers moving the Australian goods to Hong Kong and then into Mainland China via waterways. In May, Chinese police…


Cut Off the Blood Supply to China’s Communist Party: End Trade

Commentary “I want to be clear on this, our goal is not to hold China back,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a June 25 interview with Anne Claire Coudray of TF1. “It is not to establish a policy against China.” Really? The Chinese regime spread a disease that has at last count killed 604,000 Americans; last…


Prime Minister Calls For ‘Cold War Cooperation’ and WTO Penalties Ahead of G7 Leader Talks

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on June 9 delivered a warning about the growing threat of conflict in the Indo-Pacific on the eve of his trip to the United Kingdom, where he will be a guest at the Group of Seven (G7) Plus meeting of world economic powers. In a significant foreign policy speech that alluded…


Virus Rules and China to Dominate Australia-New Zealand Leaders Talks

New Zealand (NZ) Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she wants to “keep writing the COVID-19 rulebook” with Australia during talks with fellow leader Scott Morrison. The Australian and New Zealand leaders say they’ll write new pages in the COVID-19 rulebook when they meet for formal talks on Monday. Morrison and Ardern are in Queenstown for…


US Trade Chief Pressured to Lift Duties on Canadian Lumber

WASHINGTON—As U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai prepares to meet her Canadian and Mexican counterparts on Monday to review progress in the new North American trade agreement, she is under pressure from home builders and lawmakers to cut U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber. Shortages of softwood lumber amid soaring U.S. housing demand and mill production curtailed…


US Trade Chief: New Legal Tools Needed to Combat Future China Threats

WASHINGTON—The United States needs new legal tools are needed to be able to hold the Chinese Communist Party to account for anti-competitive threats against key American high-technology industries, to update existing tools that react once harm is done, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said on Thursday. Tai told a U.S. House Ways and Means Committee…


Australian Wine Exports Grow in New Markets, Plummets 96 Percent in China

New data shows that Australia has successfully weathered the storm of Beijing’s economic coercion by finding alternative markets for wine exports, which has seen growth in Europe, the UK, and the United States. Despite losses in exports to China, Australia still managed to sell $12 million worth of wine into that market between December and…


Drifting Apart? European Firms Battle to Reach UK Clients

ROME/STOCKHOLM—Post-Brexit trade rules mean prosecco supplier Serena Wines 1881 must store bottles destined for Britain on costlier, fumigated pallets in their own corner of its warehouse in the northeast Italian town of Conegliano. The new shipment requirement is one example of the extra cost and complexity that firms across continental Europe face serving British customers…


Top American, Chinese Diplomats Clash Publicly at Start of First Talks of Biden Presidency

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—The United States and China leveled sharp rebukes of each others’ policies in the first high-level, in-person talks of the Biden administration on Thursday, with the deeply strained relation between the leader of the free world and the world’s largest communist state on public display during the meeting’s opening session in Alaska. The United…