Co-Authored by Sharath Patil
White House Releases Critical Technologies Report
Last month, the White House released a landmark report titled the “National Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technologies.” The report outlines how the United States will promote and protect our competitive edge in fields such as artificial intelligence, energy, quantum information science, communication and networking technologies, semiconductors, military, and space technologies.
Forced Labor is the third most lucrative illicit trade, behind only drugs and weapons, and has an annual trade value of roughly $150 Billion. Right now, over 40 million people around the world are victims of some type of forced labor, including modern slavery, human trafficking, etc.
Thankfully, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been working to curb this inhumane practice.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is tasked with the monitoring of and enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR). In CBP’s FY 2018 Seizure Statistics, CBP advised that it enforced trademarks and copyrights pertaining to over 17,641 active recordations, including 2,289 new recordations and 812 renewals of expiring recordations.
In fiscal year 2018, 381 individuals were arrested by CBP or ICE for violations related to IPR violations and 260 convictions related to intellectual property crimes proceeded. The total number of IPR seizures decreased by 333 seizures from the previous year. Surprisingly, while the number of seizures decreased from 34,143 in 2017 to 33,810 in 2018, the total estimated manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of seized goods, had they been genuine, increased $1.4 billion.
Today, the Trump administration’s China trade war intensified as it announced plans to increase tariffs on Lists 1, 2, 3, and 4!
The president connected the additional tariff hikes to China’s new retaliatory tariffs (as a result of US’s imposition of List 4 tariffs) on $75 billion-dollar in US products, mainly impacted the agricultural and auto industries, or President Trump’s base (as previously reported here).
So what are the changes?
After thirteen months of negotiations, the U.S., Mexico, and Canada have created a new trade agreement called the “United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement” (USMCA) on October 1, 2018.
What is the USMCA?
The USMCA is the new trade agreement that builds on and modifies the trade policies created in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was signed in 1994. The purpose of the USMCA is to align the trade agreement with the current trade environment. Various industries may experience changes due to the USMCA, which could eventually affect individual consumers. Continue Reading
Since June 2017, we have been anxiously awaiting changes to the Cuba sanctions program since President Trump signed an executive order and emphatically stated that his administration would tighten loose regulations established under the Obama Administration.
On November 8, 2017, the U.S. Department of the Treasury stated,