The U.S. and Japan officially signed their initial trade deal during a brief signing ceremony at the White House on Oct. 7, setting up a potential Jan. 1 effective date. The text of the new deal is now posted to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's website. So is the text of a concurrent deal on digital trade.

The U.S. government lacks technical knowledge and a single, leading voice in its approach to technology competition with China, said Adam Segal, the emerging technologies chair at the Council on Foreign Relations. Segal, speaking during an Oct. 4 Brookings Institution panel about the U.S.-China technology relationship, said U.S. industries are concerned that technology policies, such as certain export controls, are being made without a full understanding of their impacts.

The State Department should revamp several aspects of its draft guidance for exports of surveillance technology (see 1909040071) because some of it is “troubling,” “overly broad” and may unnecessarily restrict exports, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said in comments.

U.S. sanctions on two large shipping companies last month disrupted the tanker market, forcing oil traders to cancel bookings and causing rates to spike as they searched for other ships, according to a September post from Clyde & Co.

Sanctions officials are sometimes unable to judge the effectiveness of the Trump administration's sanctions regimes, the Government Accountability Office said, pointing to the difficulty of tracing the effects of sanctions and the administration's constantly changing foreign policy goals. Officials said it is sometimes impossible to determine whether U.S. sanctions are the only or even the “most significant” reason for a foreign country changing its behavior, the report said. They also said U.S. policy goals can change while a sanctions regime is still active, “making it difficult to measure sanctions’ effectiveness in achieving any ultimate policy objective.”

U.S. companies and trade associations criticized China’s high import tariffs, inconsistent import clearance procedures and restrictive sanitary requirements in comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative ahead of an Oct. 2 hearing on China’s commitment to World Trade Organization obligations.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Oct. 2 released details of his proposal for customs procedures involving Northern Ireland after Brexit (see 1910010070). The proposal seeks to replace the “Irish backstop,” a key hurdle to passage of a transition deal in the U.K. Parliament. The proposed framework would effectively keep Northern Ireland within the EU’s regulatory framework for at least four years after the end of a transition period in 2020, giving the Northern Ireland parliament the ability to exit the proposed framework.

The Japan-South Korea dispute is unlikely to be resolved soon, and some blame should be placed on the U.S., trade experts said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event on Sept. 30. While former U.S. ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens said the Trump administration's use of export controls to address trade issues might have encouraged Japan and South Korea to take similar steps, former National Security Council staff member Michael Green said U.S. inaction is partly responsible for the escalating tensions.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Sept. 23-27 in case they were missed.

Japan has not issued a “single export approval” for hydrogen fluoride to South Korea in three months, South Korea said, saying Japan’s export restrictions are increasing supply chain uncertainties and damaging companies. “Japan’s export restrictions are an unfair and discriminatory export-restrictive measure that is directed only and unilaterally against Korea,” South Korea said in an Oct. 1 statement.