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Venezuela, Colombia Open Binational Bridge to Boost Trade

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Archives, Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, Imports/Exports, International Trade

Venezuela, Colombia Open Binational Bridge to Boost Trade

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Venezuela and Colombia officials opened the Atanasio Girardot international bridge on Sunday, allowing vehicles carrying both passengers and cargo to cross the border between both countries.

Completed in 2016 but never used, the bridge also known as Tienditas was inaugurated with a ceremony led by authorities from both countries, including Colombia’s commerce minister German Umana and transportation minister Guillermo Reyes, as well as governor of the Venezuelan border state of Tachira, Freddy Bernal.

The opening marks the most recent step toward a normalization of relations between the two countries after Colombian president Gustavo Petro took office in August.

Ties between the neighboring nations had soured after former president Ivan Duque joined the US and dozens of other countries in supporting opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader in 2019, as part of a bid to isolate President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela’s opposition put an end to Guaidó’s interim government Friday.

All border crossings between Colombia and Venezuela at the Norte de Santander area have now been fully reactivated, Reyes said on Twitter.

The Tienditas bridge is expected to boost trade between the two countries. Colombian exports to Venezuela dropped to about $330 million in 2021 from $6 billion in 2008. Colombian authorities expect total trade to reach $4 billion to $5 billion by the end of Petro’s presidency.

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Archives, Global Trade Daily, News

TRADE X Opens New Automotive Trading Facilities in Kenya

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The TRADE X global automotive trading platform creates a strategic hub in Kenya, which will serve automotive dealers within key East African countries

TRADE X, a B2B cross-border automotive trading platform based in Ontario, Canada, today announced that it has opened a new Kenyan trading corridor, which includes both a shared bonded warehouse in Mombasa and an office in Nairobi, as the company expands its reach across the African continent.

TRADE X provides auto dealers, car rental companies, fleet owners and mobility solution providers with a seamless end-to-end process for the sourcing and distribution of cross-border vehicle inventory. With the highest GDP in East Africa, Kenya serves as a strategic location, providing a direct-access route to trade with landlocked countries such as South Sudan and Uganda, where it is legal to drive vehicles registered in neighboring countries.

Over the past few months, TRADE X has focused on developing a presence in Kenya and building broader trust within the automotive industry. In May, TRADE X began buying and shipping inventory to Kenya as the company works toward making right-hand drive vehicles available on its platform.

In Kenya, the bulk of automobiles originate in Japan. Unlike other African markets, Kenya has strict import requirements. Vehicles must not be older than seven years, and cars must pass an inspection process before being shipped into the country. Vehicles that are shipped to Kenya without first passing an inspection are destroyed.

TRADE X is focused not only on tapping into the supply coming out of Japan, but to opening new trade routes between Kenya and countries such as the U.K, Australia, Thailand, South Africa, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

In Kenya, popular automotive brands include Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Nissan and Subaru. TRADE X is looking to further expand the variety of makes and models available to Kenyan car buyers.

Interested automotive dealers in West Africa can sign up at tradexport.com to begin procuring vehicles, accelerating inventory turnover and driving revenues.

The company’s AI-driven ‘Brain’ software provides dealers, fleet owners, and mobility solutions providers first-ever support in all aspects of vehicle trading. This includes trade financing, compliance, customs requirements, international payments processing, vehicle inspections, digital trade documentation, and homologation. TRADE X provides peace of mind and security for users, whether they are trading within their own continent or overseas. TRADE X simplifies the experience and ensures each transaction is transparent, compliant, insured, and monitored from start to finish.

About TRADE X

With headquarters in Ontario, Canada, TRADE X is the first global vehicle marketplace to aggregate cross-border supply and demand for car dealers, fleet owners, rental companies, mobility solution providers, importers, and exporters, opening new trading corridors to buy and sell vehicles. The TRADE X ‘Brain’ platform is a machine-learning, AI-driven technology that connects buyers and sellers through a transparent marketplace that aids sellers in finding the world’s highest bidders and gives buyers access to the best vehicle source markets and price arbitrage opportunities. Users can quickly and seamlessly transact online in a secure environment with all the complexities of international trade – compliance, anti-money laundering regulations, vehicle inspection, currency exchange, digital trade documentation, payments, and financing – all managed by TRADE X. The company serves authorized buyers and sellers everywhere with a user-friendly app available 24/7 via mobile, tablet, or desktop. TRADE X’s largest investors include Aimia Inc., a publicly traded holding company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: AIM).

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Archives, Global Trade Daily, Imports/Exports, International Trade

COVID-19 and the Future of Actions Against Unfairly Traded Imports

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The first half of 2020 has presented unanticipated and unique challenges to businesses, both in the United States and worldwide, due to public health-related restrictions on customers and the consequent economic effects. The challenges are likely to continue throughout 2020 and well into 2021. In a world trading system where supply chains often have been disrupted and competition for U.S. companies from foreign suppliers changes frequently, clients report that top management teams are seeking ways to address these challenges both through business actions and, when necessary, through legal action.

Foreign producers are facing many of the same challenges that U.S. companies are. As demand in their home markets decline, these foreign companies often look to the United States, a relatively open market, as a place to sell their goods. Sometimes these sales are at prices that under the law are considered unfairly low. Manufacturers at times even make loss-making transactions in order to cover their variable costs and make some contribution to fixed costs, in an effort to keep their businesses afloat. At other times, foreign government subsidies prop up foreign companies and allow them to sell products in the U.S. market. For U.S. companies faced with this kind of business challenge from overseas competition, there are legal means to help address the problem.

The nature of the cases

In the last few months, we have seen an uptick in cases filed with U.S. government agencies under the antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) laws. The relief that can be granted from success in these cases are additional duties, and duties in the range of 25-35 percent are not at all unusual. AD and CVD cases may be filed separately or simultaneously.

The legal basis for AD cases is that a foreign product is being sold at unfairly low prices in the U.S. and that imports of the product are injuring the U.S. industry producing that product. The test for unfairly low pricing is complex, but the pricing of the foreign product need NOT be below cost, despite some news stories that misstate the standard. The legal basis for a CVD case is that foreign companies are being subsidized by foreign governments and the importation of such products into the U.S. are injuring the U.S. industry producing that product.

Market weakness likely explains rise in cases

The AD and CVD laws have been on the books for many years, and such cases tend to be filed more often in times of economic downturns and distress, when U.S. companies are feeling the injurious effects of the imports most acutely. Given the current economic turmoil—the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reported a 13 percent decrease in global gross domestic product during the first half of 2020—it is not surprising that the current economic environment has led several companies to consider this option.

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Jeffrey Neeley is a Washington-based partner with the law firm Husch Blackwell LLP. He leads the firm’s International Trade Remedies team.

Archives, Global Trade Daily, News

US Trade Deficit Surges to Two-Year High

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Washington, DC – The volume of US imports surged and exports declined in April, pushing the US trade deficit to a two-year high of $47.2 billion, according to the latest figures released by the US Department of Commerce.

The trade deficit for the month climbed by 6.9 percent from an upwardly revised March deficit of $44.2 billion with imports growing by 1.2 percent to an all-time high of $240.6 billion and exports falling for the fourth month in a row by a rate of 0.2 percent to $195.4 billion.

In 2013, the trade deficit declined by 11.4 percent to $476.4 billion. Some analysts feel the decline in exports can be pegged on the extreme cold weather in the eastern and southern US coupling with the continuing drought in California’s agricultural Central Valley to impact the country’s manufacturing capability and, at the same time, increase the volume of imported foodstuffs.

The same analysts, though, are guardedly forecasting a bounce back with economic growth reaching around 3 percent in the second half of the year as a boom in the nation’s energy sector could well narrow the trade gap. Stronger domestic petroleum production cut oil imports by 10.9 percent during the first quarter of the year, while oil imports in April fell 2.2 percent to $29.8 billion, while conditional US petroleum exports rose 3.1 percent to $11.8 billion.

The US trade deficit with the 28-member European Union hit a monthly record of $14 billion in April as imports from that region hit an all-time high, while the trade gap with China, the largest the US has with any trading partner, jumped 33.7 percent to $27.3 billion in April, the largest gap since January.

The US-China trade relationship has come under scrutiny on Capitol Hill with some lawmakers charging that Beijing is manipulating its currency to keep it undervalued against the dollar. That manipulation, they have said, makes imported Chinese goods cheaper in the US and American-made products more expensive in China.

06/09/2014