Excerpt: The Obama administration, facing growing complaints in Washington that it hasn’t persuaded China to increase the value of its currency, filed two trade cases against the world’s largest exporter of goods. The complaints at the World Trade Organization yesterday — one on payment-processing companies and the other on steel duties — followed demands in Congress hours earlier that the U.S. push China to accept a stronger yuan. Today, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is scheduled to appear before the same lawmakers to discuss China’s trade and its currency. “People are losing patience as economic conditions here don’t improve and China says they will make changes, and then they don’t,” William Reinsch, the president of the Washington- based National Foreign Trade Council, said in an interview. “The currency debate has taken on a life of its own, and I don’t think the WTO cases will stop that.”
Category: NFTC In the News
Leading U.S. Business Groups Strongly Against Chinese Currency Bill
Excerpt: A group of leading U.S. business organizations on Tuesday urged the exclusion of a bill to pressure China to revalue its currency. “We strongly oppose legislation that would allow the use of either the antidumping or countervailing duty law to address currency concerns,” the group of top U.S. business agencies said in a joint letter. The letter, signed by 36 business and farm groups, including the American Chamber of Commerce in China, the Business Roundtable, the National Foreign Trade Council and the Coalition of Service Industries, was addressed to the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin, whose panel is to hold two days of hearings this week on the issue of Chinese currency, or yuan.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2010-09/15/c_13495142.htm
Import Ban Bill Has Manufacturers Worried
Despite Embargo, Cuba a Haven for Pirated U.S. Goods
Excerpt: A few weeks after Ashton Kutcher’s latest comedy “Killers” premiered in the United States, the movie was already entertaining the masses in communist Cuba. For two pesos, the equivalent of nine U.S. cents, the state-owned Yara movie theater in the heart of Havana offered Cubans a washed out and pixilated copy of Kutcher’s adventures as a CIA assassin who is himself targeted for a hit. “It’s a very good flick. We just got it on DVD,” says a woman in the ticket office. The problem is that “Killers” will not be officially released on DVD in the United States until Sept. 7 and even then Cuba will be off limits due to the 48-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the Caribbean island… “The reality is that U.S. products and services are down there whether the companies that make them sell them or not,” said Jake Colvin, Vice President for Global Trade Issues at the National Foreign Trade Council in Washington. “The frustrating thing is that U.S. companies are getting nothing for it,” he told Reuters… The National Foreign Trade Council says the current lack of formal diplomatic relations between the two nations makes it difficult for U.S. companies to raise these issues with Cuban authorities. “Until we fix the relationship, until we have governments that talk to each other and have a better official relationship and we have rules that allow companies to interact and do business in Cuba we are not going to be able to address the problem,” said Colvin. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0222000820100902
Obama Will Revamp U.S. Export Controls by Narrowing Military Restrictions
Changes Weighed in Military Exports
Obama Moving to Decontrol U.S. Defense Goods Exports
Will the White House Fight to End the Cuba Travel Ban?
Pack Your Bags for Cuba? Maybe Soon, If You Have a Good Reason
Excerpt: Widespread speculation that the Obama administration will loosen restrictions on the ability of American citizens to visit Cuba has put travel to the island back in the spotlight. If you are hoping that the president’s expected announcement will allow you to travel to Cuba, here are a few things to consider: Ten years ago, Congress passed legislation which restricts the president from allowing “travel to, from, or within Cuba for tourist activities.” The president may only license travel under a dozen categories of travel for a particular reason. Under current law, American citizens may be able to travel to Cuba to visit family, to conduct professional or academic research, for educational or religious reasons, for public performances or exhibitions, to support the Cuban people, to conduct humanitarian projects, or to market or sell certain products. There are also exemptions for journalists, diplomats, and private foundations. Within these limitations, the president has the ability to get many more Americans traveling to Cuba for activities that would benefit the United States and the Cuban people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jake-colvin/pack-your-bags-for-cuba-m_b_687697.html
U.S. Plans to Ease Travel to Cuba – Lawmaker’s Aide
Excerpt: The Obama administration is getting ready to relax travel restrictions to Cuba for some Americans, without lifting the trade embargo and a ban on U.S. tourism to the island, a congressional aide said on Tuesday… “There will be a huge emphasis on people-to-people travel. That is (the Obama administration’s) whole mantra. That’s what they’re talking about,” said Sarah Stephens, executive director of Center for Democracy in the Americas, a non-profit group in Washington that opposes sanctions against Cuba. Cuba plans to drill for oil in its Gulf of Mexico waters and U.S. companies would be left out if deposits are found and the trade embargo is not lifted, she said. Jake Colvin, vice president at the National Foreign Trade Council, said the new policy could possibly increase the number of airports from which U.S. citizens can travel to Cuba.
