| | | | |  | | By Ari Hawkins | | | PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off for Thanksgiving this Thursday and Friday but back to our normal schedule on Monday, Nov. 27.
| | — A loose coalition of more than 20 Asia Pacific economies at the APEC forum on Friday reaffirmed a commitment to reform the WTO, and broke through opposition from China to adopt new shared trade and investment principles. — President Joe Biden papered over trade disputes in talks with Mexican leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and agreed to cooperate on fentanyl trafficking and irregular migration, two common lines of attack from GOP lawmakers. — Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) and fellow China hawks are piling fresh pressure on the White House to ban Beijing-headquartered TikTok after Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America” resurfaced on the short-form video application. It’s Monday, Nov. 20. Welcome to Morning Trade!! Hopefully you all had a chance over the weekend to enjoy a good ole millennial-core Friendsgiving. I like to think of it as the 10-mile training run ahead of this week’s marathon. Send tips, suggestions and swear-laced rants to: ahawkins@politico.com, gbade@politico.com and dpalmer@politico.com. You can also follow us on X: @_arihawkins, @gavinbade and @tradereporter.
| | | | A message from Consumer Brands Association: Whether it’s cranberry sauce or green beans, canned goods are Thanksgiving staples. Canned goods also play an integral role in the giving season – with food banks relying on donations to help support approximately 44 million Americans suffering from food insecurity. This holiday season, tell the Department of Commerce: Protect consumers and America’s most vulnerable. Reject new tariffs on tin mill steel that would increase the cost of canned goods and endanger U.S. manufacturing jobs. | | | | | | | 
President Joe Biden delivers remarks during the APEC Leaders Retreat on the last day of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week at Moscone Center on November 17, 2023 in San Francisco, California. | Kent Nishimura/Getty Images | AMID GLOBAL WARS, APEC UNITES OVER WTO REFORM: Twenty-one Asia Pacific economies agreed to reform the WTO and address its ruptured dispute settlement system, and adopt new trade and investment principles at the tail end of last week’s APEC leaders summit in San Francisco. APEC ministers released a joint statement on Friday and vowed to uphold the “vital role” of the institution, saying "we support necessary reform to improve all of the WTO’s functions, so that members can better achieve the WTO’s foundational objectives and address existing and emerging global trade challenges.” “The WTO Appellate Body remains paralyzed,” said prime minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong near the end of the summit, urging the territories to agree on dispute settlement reform that is both binding and enforceable. The settlement system has been stymied since the Trump administration moved to halt the appointment of new judges to the appellate body. President Joe Biden has continued the blockade. What’s next: The WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference, set for late February in the United Arab Emirates, is seen as an informal (albeit ambitious) target for substantial reform. Divisions loom: The APEC territories, a disparate geopolitical coalition, which includes Russia, China and the United States, did not mention Gaza in their joint communication. But a chair's statement from the White House noted the economies “exchanged views on the ongoing crisis in Gaza.” The regions also agreed to adopt new trade and investment principles, known as the "San Francisco Principles on Integrating Inclusivity and Sustainability into Trade and Investment Policy,” a non-binding cooperative agreement aimed at shoring up environmental sustainability, communication and information gathering. The principles left open room for disagreement after overcoming pushback from China, and said “the way to achieve economic inclusion and sustainability for each economy may differ depending on what our societies and what our economies look like.” APEC recap: Biden used the APEC summit last week to converse with Pacific Rim leaders, and underscore the American economy’s trade and investment potential in the region. Digital trade pivot: But the administration's outreach comes amid mounting pressure from lawmakers in both parties, and backlash from the tech community over the decision to withdraw U.S. support for key digital trade proposals. While USTR Katherine Tai insisted the administration is developing a new position on digital trade, she did not signal how long that would take. Both the State and Commerce departments are believed to oppose the agency's recent pivot. “The Biden Administration’s decision to walk away from longstanding bipartisan positions on digital trade undermines American leadership and competitiveness, surrenders the playing field to the Chinese Communist Party, and abandons our closest trading partners,” said Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) in a statement condemning the decision. “This foolish approach is part of a broader, misguided policy of the Biden Administration to circumvent the will of Congress with a go-it-alone approach to trade policy.” ICYMI: The highlight of the summit was a closely watched four-hour discussion between Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which resulted in a raft of modest deliverables, including the resumption of military-to-military dialogues and a working group on counternarcotics. ALSO AT APEC, BIDEN AND AMLO EYE 2024: Biden and Mexican leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador pledged to work together to combat fentanyl trafficking and irregular migration in talks on Friday — which appeared to paper over trade disputes and dialogue over investment and infrastructure projects. The meeting on the sidelines of APEC did not result in any significant deliverables, and took place as GOP lawmakers hammer the administration over its handling of immigration policy and America’s fentanyl epidemic, and as both countries gear up for separate 2024 elections. Whether or not it plays better at home — Biden’s focus on migration and fentanyl is bound to irritate some Latin American officials, who’ve urged senior administration members to prioritize economic development in regional engagement and quietly bemoaned the creep of electoral politics into Washington's trade agenda.
| | | | GET A BACKSTAGE PASS TO COP28 WITH GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Get insider access to the conference that sets the tone of the global climate agenda with POLITICO's Global Playbook newsletter. Authored by Suzanne Lynch, Global Playbook delivers exclusive, daily insights and comprehensive coverage that will keep you informed about the most crucial climate summit of the year. Dive deep into the critical discussions and developments at COP28 from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12. SUBSCRIBE NOW. | | | | | Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories. By the numbers: American authorities conducted 240,988 migration apprehensions at the border with Mexico last month, according to Customs Border Protection data, which is down 11 percent from September, but high compared to this time in previous years. For the record: López Obrador is signaling willingness to cooperate with the U.S. for the sake of securing his hand-picked successor's grip on power at the ballot box next year. “Even under a president like [López Obrador], who has sought strategic autonomy by distancing himself from the United States on key issues, Mexico can only practice autonomy within limits,” said Ryan Berg, the director of the Americas program at CSIS. “The realities are that it is tethered to the U.S. in too many ways, and thus it must respond to some U.S. demands on key issues like fentanyl, migration and trade.” SPEAKER REBUKES BIDEN-XI VISIT: House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday said that Joe Biden was “projecting weakness” in talks with China’s Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the San Francisco summit. “Anyone who looks at this objectively has to agree that President Biden is projecting weakness on the world stage,” Johnson told radio host John Catsimatidis, without specifying that weakness. On Xi’s dinner with industry last week: “It was shameful that we gave standing ovations … by these CEOs of tech companies to a communist leader of a nation that persecutes its own people,” Johnson added. Business titans like Apple CEO Tim Cook and BlackRock's chief executive Larry Fink were on the guest list, per CNBC. Xi’s big pitch: The dinner came as the Chinese leader looks to break through to skeptical U.S. investors and businesses amid the country’s economic slowdown and crackdown on the private sector. More on that here.
| | | | A message from Consumer Brands Association:   | | | | | | |  Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin and chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, during a hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. Anna Rose Layden/Bloomberg via Getty Images | HAWKS RE-UP PUSH TO BAN TIKTOK: Republican China hawks are reiterating calls to ban the Beijing-headquartered short form video application, citing claims that TikTok is inflaming divisions around the crisis in Gaza. (Badly) needed context: The push comes after Osama bin Laden's 2002 "Letter to America" resurfaced on TikTok, and as some users appeared to sympathize with the justification for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The hashtag #lettertoamerica has since been removed from TikTok. Rep. Mike Gallagher, chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Community Party, said in an interview with Fox News that the supposed trend is "further evidence that we need to ban TikTok or force a sale before a Chinese-controlled app, before the Chinese Communist Party checkmates the free world by controlling the dominant media platform in America that can spread this dangerous, disgusting nonsense.” Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and 2024 candidate, struck a similar tone on Thursday. “I have long said that we have to ban TikTok,” she told Fox News Radio. “You have got – they are posting letters of Osama bin Laden’s letter, the week after the 9/11 attack, and it is the justification for why he did it.” That sentiment was shared by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), who argued on X that TikTok is “pushing terrorist propaganda on American kids,” and Josh Hawley (Mo.), who reiterated long-standing concerns about China’s data collection procedures in an interview. MEDICAL INDUSTRY NUDGES BIDEN ON APPLE: The Medical Device Manufacturers Association sent a letter to the White House last week pressing the administration to uphold a decision by the U.S. International Trade Commission that could halt the import of certain Apple devices over concerns that the company’s pulse oximetry function infringed copyright. “Apple has a history of skirting patent protections, including in the medical technology space,” wrote MDMA president and CEO Mark Leahey. He added that any suggestion by Apple that the remedial order should not be implemented should be rejected and “would cause grave harm to innovation and entrepreneurs.” Catch-up: The ITC’s ruling last month upheld a January decision finding that Apple violated the medical technology company Masimo's patent rights. The move kicked off a 60-day countdown during which the Biden administration could overturn the ruling. WHITE HOUSE DROPS SANCTIONS TIED TO CHINA’S UYGHURS: The Biden administration is dropping sanctions on a Chinese government institute that the Commerce Department said three years ago was “complicit in human rights violations” against Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups, Carmen Paun reports. In exchange, the Chinese government Friday warned Chinese companies manufacturing chemicals used to make the illicit fentanyl that’s killing tens of thousands of Americans each year that they need to stop.
| | | | JOIN WOMEN RULE ON 12/12: For centuries, women were left out of the rooms that shaped policy, built companies and led countries. Now, society needs the creativity and entrepreneurship of women more than ever. How can we make sure that women are given the space and opportunity to shape the world’s future for the better? Join POLITICO's Women Rule on Dec. 12 for Leading with Purpose: How Women Are Reinventing the World to explore this and more. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | | — Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Friday praised Boeing deals with Egypt, Ethiopia, the largest ever purchase of Boeing airplanes in African history, and Jordan, which amounted to more than $21 billion worth of U.S. export content. — President Joe Biden directed top officials to prepare visa bans and sanctions for extremist Israeli settlers attacking and displacing Palestinians in the West Bank, according to an internal document read to POLITICO, per Alexander Ward. — China has already launched a “digital” invasion of Taiwan, but the island is looking to gain an edge through emerging technologies like artificial intelligence to defend itself, a top Taipei official said Saturday, Maggie Miller reports. — Jim Beam bourbon and Macallan Scotch whisky are still being imported by the team that marketed them in Russia before the war in Ukraine, a POLITICO investigation finds, per Sergey Panov and Douglas Busvine. — Donald Trump said over the weekend that he would withdraw from the Pacific trade deal being advanced by the Biden administration if he wins the 2024 presidential election, per Reuters. THAT’S ALL FOR MORNING TRADE! See you again soon! In the meantime, drop the team a line: dpalmer@politico.com, gbade@politico.com and ahawkins@politico.com. Follow us @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Trade.
| | | | A message from Consumer Brands Association: Whether it’s cranberry sauce or green beans, canned goods are Thanksgiving staples. Canned goods also play an integral role in the giving season – with food banks relying on donations to help support approximately 44 million Americans suffering from food insecurity. This holiday season, tell the Department of Commerce: Protect consumers and America’s most vulnerable. Reject new tariffs on tin mill steel that would increase the cost of canned goods and endanger U.S. manufacturing jobs. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
