G20 trade ministers convening this month in Osaka, Japan, “should support enabling frameworks for open trade in an increasingly digital global market,” said the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Internet Association and seven other tech groups Wednesday of “recommended outcomes” for the June 28-29 summit. To “facilitate” digital trade, the G20 should recognize the need for all countries to support a permanent World Trade Organization “moratorium against customs duties on electronic transmissions,” said the groups. “Approaches to data governance that fail to include such commitments should be discouraged.” The G20 should also “ensure that any new approaches to content regulation are made pursuant to comprehensive dialogue with meaningful opportunities for input by industry and civil society,” they said. The tech industry “recognizes the importance of building trust online to strengthen consumer confidence in digital trade,” they said. “Industry supports baseline privacy and consumer protection rules.” Prioritize "research and investment” in artificial, automation and “algorithmic data analysis” technologies, they asked. “Frameworks regarding the governance of these technologies should be adaptable to account for the future stages of the technology and should be designed to protect users from demonstrated, rather than speculative harms.”

Congress should “act quickly” to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on free trade, said the National Electrical Manufacturers Association Wednesday. “Our neighbors to the immediate north and south are not only major markets for our Members' products but also supply chain and manufacturing partners." USMCA “includes many provisions that advance cooperation with our Canadian and Mexican counterparts to address business costs in North America and boost our global competitiveness," NEMA said. It urged the U.S. and Mexico Friday to “reach an understanding that will prevent the imposition of U.S. tariffs” on Mexican imports (see 1905310014).

The Commerce Department plans to issue an advance NPRM for export controls on foundational technologies in coming weeks, said Rich Ashooh, assistant secretary-export administration, at a Bureau of Industry and Security Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. Hillary Hess, director of Commerce’s regulatory policy division, said only “it is in the process now.” BIS recently updated the commerce control list (CCL) with five new emerging technologies (see 1905230018). Hess and others previously said BIS was behind in publishing controls on emerging and foundational technologies due to the partial federal government shutdown and the large volume of comments. Tuesday, Ashooh said BIS plans to stagger notices about emerging and foundational technologies, and Hess said it plans to release the ANPRM before any more emerging technologies are added to the CCL. Ashooh said he will try to give “a little more” time for comments on the foundational technology notice but it may not be possible. When Ashooh last asked Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for a public comment extension, Ross “very grudgingly” agreed, Ashooh said. “It’s a fast-moving administration,” he said, “and I’m sure that will still apply.” Ashooh said the ANPRM for foundational technologies will be a “very different thought process” from the previous notice for emerging technologies, but will offer another opportunity to communicate with BIS: “Those of you who provided comments on emerging, whatever you didn’t get to say in emerging, you can say in foundational.” Hess said BIS must wait for OMB to OK the ANPRM, which can take up to 90 days. But Hess said usually the OMB “doesn’t take that whole time.” Commerce won't provide straightforward definitions of foundational or emerging technologies in an upcoming notice, said both speakers. “Emerging technologies defies a specific definition,” Ashooh said. The technologies that fit under the emerging technologies category will be defined “on a rolling basis” as they’re proposed. Hess said BIS won’t try to place rigid definitions on any technology category but instead try to “identify the technical parameters.” Commerce looks for a common thread when identifying emerging or foundational technology exports that may be candidates for the CCL, Hess said.

The U.S. temporary general license after it added Huawei to its entity list was “almost no relief” for America's semiconductor industry, which has been hurt severely by the move, said Semiconductor Industry Association CEO John Neuffer. At a Washington International Trade Association discussion last week, Neuffer underscored the importance of the Chinese market to U.S. semiconductor exporters and said the Trump administration should more tactfully negotiate with China. “We would like the U.S. government to better balance its national security concerns with its economic security concerns,” Neuffer said. He said there's an inaccurate perception chipmakers were aided by the Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security's temporary move (see 1905290036). “It leaves a major hole for us,” Neuffer said, noting Huawei is one of the “world’s biggest” telecom gear and cellphone providers. “There’s basically no reprieve.” If China’s expected June 1 tariff increase affects U.S. consumer goods including computers and cellphones, which had previously been kept off the tariff lists, Neuffer said his industry will suffer significant losses, partly because China is a large portion of that industry's export market. “Because they are our customers,” Neuffer said, “we will get hit and so will the American consumer.” Neuffer said any U.S.-China decoupling is a “folly,” and the Trump administration’s desire to bring all U.S. supply chains back to the U.S. is “not realistic.” The White House didn't comment Friday.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin speaks “on a regular basis” with Walmart Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs. “I’m monitoring with him very carefully” the impact of the Section 301 tariffs on Walmart customers, Mnuchin told the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday under questioning from Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa. Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly referenced Mnuchin’s testimony on a Q1 earnings call Thursday (see 1905230019) when he said the secretary had commented “that he is going to be very attentive to the impact on consumers” of the proposed List 4 tariffs on $300 million in Chinese goods not previously dutied. Mnuchin speaks to Walmart “because obviously, they have a lot of these consumer issues,” he told Axne. “The way the tariffs were designed was the last tranche was really the consumer issue,” he said. “My expectation is that a lot of this business will be moved from China to other places in the region, so that there will not be a cost” to consumers in the form of pass-along price increases should List 4 be imposed, he said. “There may be a small number of items where the tariff may be passed on,” and those will be addressed through an exclusion process that will launch as soon as the List 4 duties take effect, he said. Increased tariffs “will increase prices for customers,” said Biggs on a recent Walmart earnings call (see 1905160075). Walmart didn’t comment Friday on Mnuchin’s testimony.

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security added five new national security-related technologies to the export administration regulations’ commerce control list, said a Thursday notice in the Federal Register. The additions stem from changes made to the Wassenaar Arrangement’s list of dual-use goods and technologies agreed to during a 2018 plenary meeting, BIS said. The changes add “recently developed or developing technologies” that are “essential” to U.S. national security: “discrete microwave transistors,” “continuity of operation software,” “post-quantum cryptography,” “underwater transducers designed to operate as hydrophones” and “air-launch platforms.” The changes took effect Thursday. Shipments “on dock for loading, on lighter, laden aboard an exporting carrier, or en route aboard a carrier” to a foreign destination on or before Thursday may proceed to the destination.

US tariffs on Chinese imports “has been a fluid situation for quite some time now,” and Target is “monitoring this very carefully,” said CEO Brian Cornell on a fiscal Q1 earnings call Wednesday. “As we think about tariffs, we reflect on the impact it could have and will have on American families that are going to be paying higher prices.” Target’s supply-chain “teams have done a very good job of trying to mitigate the impact in the short term,” he said. Its “multi-category portfolio” is a “huge advantage in this environment,” he said. “Our ability to flex our focus from category to category is something that’s somewhat unique to Target versus single-category retailers.” The company has “some very sophisticated vendor partners that for years now have been working to diversify their manufacturing base,” he said.

The Trump administration remains “on track to hit the industry” with 25 percent Section 301 tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods not previously dutied because trade talks with China “have deteriorated” in the past two weeks, emailed the Sports & Fitness Industry Association to members Wednesday. “Both sides have retreated to their corners and dug in, with no clear pathway for resolution in the immediate future,” it said. The next possible breakthrough in the talks could come at the G20 summit June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan, where Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, are scheduled to meet, said SFIA. The summit is “two weeks after the List 4 tariffs go into effect,” the association said inaccurately. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative hasn’t set a List 4 effective date, and the timing of the comments and hearings makes it unlikely the administration would be in a position to impose the duties until after Trump returns from Japan. An SFIA spokesperson later clarified that what the group meant to say was that the G20 comes two weeks after the June 10 deadline for submitting requests to appear at the June 17 hearing on the List 4 tariffs. SFIA is organizing a petition drive for members to urge the removal of apparel, footwear, smartwatches and fitness trackers from List 4.

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security is issuing a general license temporarily allowing certain transactions with Huawei and 68 of its affiliates without new licensing requirements set by their recent addition (see 1905160081) to the entity list. The general license authorizes exports, re-exports and in-country transfers under pre-listing conditions if they are related to continued operation of existing networks and equipment; support for existing Huawei handsets; cybersecurity research and vulnerability disclosure; or engagement necessary for the development of 5G standards by a recognized standards body. The general license is set for Federal Register publication Wednesday and remains in effect until Aug. 19. "The Temporary General License grants operators time to make other arrangements and the Department space to determine the appropriate long term measures for Americans and foreign telecommunications providers that currently rely on Huawei equipment for critical services,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross Monday. “This license will allow operations to continue for existing Huawei mobile phone users and rural broadband networks.” The steps the U.S. government is taking are “long overdue,” blogged Roslyn Layton, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, on Tuesday. “The actions follow two decades of intelligence gathering and experience documenting the risk of the products and services of firms associated with the Chinese government and military, repeated trade violations, and cyberattacks, including the one on the Office of Personnel Management.”

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative launches the long-awaited product exclusion process for the third tranche of tariffed Section 301 goods "on or around June 30," the agency said in Tuesday's Federal Register. USTR requested OMB expedited approval for an information collection for the exclusion process that was announced as part of the May 10 tariff increase for List 3 goods from China (see 1905090018). "USTR is establishing a process by which U.S. stakeholders can request the exclusion of particular products classified within a covered tariff subheading" on List 3 that took effect in September, the agency said. USTR "anticipates that the window for submitting exclusion requests will open on or around June 30." Requests for exclusion will have to identify a particular product and provide supporting data and the rationale for the requested exclusion. Within 14 days after USTR posts a request for exclusion, interested persons can provide a response with the reasons they support or oppose the request. They can reply to the response within 7 days after it is posted.