The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, signed into law on December 23, 2020, represents one of the most sweeping attempts by the United States to address allegations of forced labor in global supply chains, particularly those linked to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Act places a heavy burden on companies, especially in sectors like […]
When supply chains began to fray in early 2020, the first signs weren’t always visible on supermarket shelves. For many manufacturers, the cracks showed up as missed deliveries, empty bins in the warehouse, and anxious calls from sub-contractors suddenly unable to ship components. Metal partsâ€â€everything from fasteners to specialized castingsâ€â€were among the most ubiquitous and […]
The passage of Canada’s Bill C-15, more formally known as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, marked a significant shift in how natural resource firms must navigate supply chain operations. After its Royal Assent in June 2020, the legislative framework began reshaping expectations for corporate conduct in regions intersecting with […]
The International Trade Council is pleased to announce the signing of the UK-Japan Free Trade Agreement, which marks the United Kingdom’s first major trade pact after Brexit. The deal is expected to strengthen the trade relationship between the two nations, bringing significant benefits to both countries. Under the agreement, nearly all exports from the […]
The passage of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act in 2018 prompted significant reflection across multiple sectors, but it wasn’t until the first reporting cycles in 2019 that the scale of the challenge became truly clear. Mining firms, manufacturers, retailersâ€â€each began grappling, in varying degrees of seriousness, with the Act’s reporting requirements. Yet, for all the initial […]
When the European Green Deal was formally adopted in July 2020, it marked not just another high-level policy framework, but what many saw as a decisive shift in the EU’s climate and industrial strategies. In the months that followed, as the Green Deal Work Programme took shape, attention turned rapidly to implementation mechanismsâ€â€where lofty ambitions […]
Few products became as emblematic of 2020 as masks, gloves, and gowns. Personal protective equipment (PPE)â€â€once a niche concern for hospitals and industryâ€â€suddenly found itself at the center of global supply chains and public anxiety. For those seeking to track how manufacturing adapted to unprecedented demand, the challenge wasn’t just in counting boxes shipped, but […]
International Trade Council welcomes the decision of the United States to drop the proposed 10% tariff on certain types of Canadian aluminum. The tariff was announced by President Donald Trump just last month, citing a flood of under-priced metal into the country. After determining that imports were likely to decline after an earlier surge, the […]
The U.K. Companies (Miscellaneous Reporting) Regulations 2018, which came into force in September 2019, represented what many policymakers considered a significant, if somewhat understated, step toward greater corporate transparency. While not as headline-grabbing as some of the government’s other corporate governance reforms, these regulations introduced a key requirement: that beneficial ownership information (BOI) for companies […]
When the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2020 was signed into law in December 2019, the broader public attention largely fell on its topline budget allocations and headline procurement programs. Yet beneath these more conspicuous elements, the legislation embedded provisions that arguably carried equalâ€â€if not greaterâ€â€long-term significance for federal contractors. Among […]
Financial crime, and money laundering in particular, remains one of the more persistent and elusive threats to economic stability. It’s a world where obfuscation is the rule, not the exception. Criminals are inventive; they learn, they adapt. Law enforcement and regulators, meanwhile, must continuously refine their tools and methods just to keep pace. Amid this […]
Forecasting sectoral growth remains both an art and a science, even in our era of vast databases and advanced analytics. While aggregate macroeconomic forecastsâ€â€GDP, inflation, labor participationâ€â€tend to capture headlines, a great deal of economic dynamism actually plays out at the level of individual sectors. For this reason, longitudinal data organized by International Standard Industrial […]
The International Trade Council (ITC) welcomes the news that the European Union has agreed to eliminate tariffs on US lobster, a key priority of President Donald Trump, in exchange for the US halving import taxes on some $160m worth of European goods, including cigarette lighters and certain crystal glassware. The agreement is the first tariff […]
Tourism is a powerful force in modern economiesâ€â€fueling job creation, entrepreneurship, and regional development. But the real impact of visitor spending is often hard to measure. Too frequently, analysis focuses on headline arrivals or hotel occupancy, missing the broader ripple effects across restaurants, transport, entertainment, and retail. To address this gap, economists have turned to […]
The Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act (ESTMA), in force since 2015, has by now become a familiar fixture in the compliance landscape of Canada’s mining, oil, and gas industries. But if the legislation’s first years were marked by firms simply finding their feet with its basic requirements, 2020 brought a noticeable shift in both tone […]
There’s a tendency, even among seasoned economists, to treat ISIC codes as though they exist in a vacuumâ€â€neatly separating sectors, sorting economic activity into convenient boxes. But in reality, the landscape of industry is far more layered. Businesses come in all shapes and sizes, wrapped in a range of legal structures that, if we’re honest, […]