The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is weighing whether to extend the first of the Section 301 List 1 tariff exclusions it granted late last year for up to another 12 months when they expire Dec. 28, said Thursday’s Federal Register. USTR will evaluate extending each exclusion on a “case-by-case basis." It seeks comments in docket USTR-2019-0019 by Nov. 30 on whether lifting the exclusions will “result in severe economic harm” to U.S. interests. USTR wants to know what efforts U.S. importers have made to source products from countries other than China since List 1 took effect in July 2018.

The U.S. should collaborate with state governments, industry and other stakeholders to help small businesses use technology for exporting, encourage tech providers to distribute digital tools to reduce barriers for small business exports and prioritize negotiations of trade deals that open markets for small businesses, said a study released Wednesday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Google. Pressing obstacles include unclear privacy rules and liability risks of foreign regulations, they said after surveying 3,800 small firms. “Many of the barriers that impede small business exports can be reduced and mitigated through digital tools,” the study said. “However, many U.S. small businesses are unaware of these tools, and in other cases, these tools are not optimized for small businesses.”

The Commerce Department may propose export controls on emerging technologies within weeks and an advance NPRM on foundational technologies before year's end, after delays (see 1909040029). That could help ease concerns from industry that warns against overly broad, unilateral controls, Matthew Borman, deputy assistant secretary-export administration, told a Sensors and Instrumentation Technical Advisory Committee meeting Tuesday. "Some companies are starting to think about moving R&D offshore because they don't know what's going to come out,” said Borman. “These will be very specific. They will not be general categories.” There will be a 60-day comment period for both, twice that as proposed originally for the ANPRM, the official said.

“Substantial progress” is being made in U.S.-China trade talks, said a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Tuesday. Heads of the teams agreed in a phone call Friday “to properly address each other's core concerns and affirmed that technical consultations on part of the text has been basically completed,” he said. “They will have another telephone call shortly. In the meantime, working-level consultations will be continued at a fast pace.” The countries are “looking probably to be ahead of schedule to sign a very big portion of the China deal,” President Donald Trump told reporters Monday. “We’ll call it ‘phase one,’ but it’s a very big portion.”

Timing of List 4B Section 301 tariffs, due to take effect Dec. 15 on smartphones, laptops, tablets and other goods, “could not have been worse" for a consumer tech sector already facing product innovation and demand pressures, blogged Futuresource Tuesday. Tech companies need to be agile and resilient as global trade and geopolitical tensions have disrupted technology supply chains that were optimized for long-term cost efficiencies, said the researcher. Companies have to optimize for the disruptions, while using trade uncertainties as an opportunity to create a strategic competitive advantage, it said. Global CE supply chains are at increased risk of “fracturing” as a result of the U.S.-China trade dispute, said Futuresource, which sees a “short-term fix” as a survival strategy, allowing companies to re-evaluate classification and product routing of key components. Long term, tech firms should consider a “China Plus One” strategy whereby companies active in China augment existing investments with a second facility to diversify risk, cut costs and reduce over-reliance on China, it said. That’s beginning to happen, with some companies announcing they’re transferring production facilities to Vietnam, for example, it said: Trade disruptions also offer opportunities for digitization initiatives in the supply chain.

Customs and Border Protection is delaying to Nov. 15 comments on its proposal to amend regulations to allow disclosure of information to trademark holders on voluntarily abandoned shipments, says Tuesday's Federal Register notice. The proposed rule would align information sharing procedures for voluntarily abandoned merchandise with procedures for seized merchandise, allowing CBP to better address trademark infringement by way of e-commerce shipments. Comments were due Monday.

China plans 20 national pilot zones to promote artificial intelligence development and manufacturing, reported the Hong Kong Trade Development Council Thursday. The sites will be located across the country, including in the “Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Yangtze River Delta,” the report said. The U.S. Commerce Department is considering export controls on emerging technologies -- including AI -- to limit countries from gaining access to sensitive technology (see report, Oct. 25). The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn't comment Friday.

The Commerce Department got 200-plus Huawei-related license requests since the Chinese company was added to the agency’s entity list, according to a Commerce spokesperson. “Given the complexity of the matter, the interagency process is ongoing to ensure we correctly identified which licenses were safe to approve.” Companies haven't received approvals or denials, said trade lawyers with clients that submitted license applications. Huawei didn't comment Wednesday.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will begin accepting exclusion requests Oct. 31 at noon EDT for the 15 percent Section 301 List 4A tariffs that took effect Sept. 1, said the agency Friday. USTR will accept the requests through Jan. 31 at its exclusions portal, it said. The public will have 14 days to comment on an exclusion request after it's posted online. In deciding whether to grant an exclusion, USTR will look at whether a product is available from a source outside of China, and "whether the additional duties would cause severe economic harm to the requestor or other U.S. interests," it said. List 4A includes tariff subheadings on TVs, smart speakers and other consumer tech goods where China’s share of U.S. imports from the world is less than 75 percent for each subheading, said USTR in August (see 1908150005). List 4B, tariffs on which are scheduled to take effect Dec. 15, has products where China’s share of U.S. imports from the world is 75 percent or more for each subheading.

House Democrats and the Trump administration are “still at work” on a bill to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and are “making progress every day,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday. “We’re not there yet.” The House “will be able to proceed” on a bill “as soon as we can get the assurances from the administration and from everyone involved that there will be enforceability of some of the provisions” and it will “be an improvement” of the North American Free Trade Agreement, she said. “I’m optimistic.” Back-and-forth proposals between House Democrats and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are “confidential,” she said. “We feel very good about being on a path to yes,” she said. “While we have some good things in the bill, it’s only a list of good things unless it can be enforced.” USTR didn't comment.