The United States has sought to know what steps Bangladesh would take to remove the tariff and non-tariff barriers to importing the US goods and to reduce the trade deficit.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) office in a meeting with the commerce ministry of Bangladesh asked to know about Bangladesh’s action plan.
The meeting between USTR and the commerce ministry was held last Wednesday. Officials from both countries attended the virtual meeting.
Commerce secretary Mahbubur Rahman told Prothom Alo Saturday night, “We had the meeting with USTR before President Trump suspended the decision to impose reciprocal tariff for three months. There, we told them about our efforts to remove all the non-tariff barriers.”
“They asked to get an updated picture on the steps from our side, discussed during the last TICFA (Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement) meeting. A report will be sent to them within a week,” he added.
US President Donald Trump had imposed a reciprocal tariff on the goods from Bangladesh along with 60 other countries and regions of the world. Tariffs were imposed on many countries at a high rate with a minimum tariff rate of 10 per cent. A 37 per cent tariff was imposed on Bangladeshi products.
However, president Trump suspended all the tariffs except for 10 per cent for three months in the early hours of Thursday (Bangladesh time).
Earlier, different countries contacted the Trump administration for discussion and promised to take steps for increasing the import of US products. Trump has imposed higher tariffs on those countries where US exports are low but imports are high.
Chief adviser of the interim government Professor Muhammad Yunus had sent a letter to President Donald Trump on 7 April with the request of suspending the new tariffs for three months.
Meanwhile, commerce adviser Sk Bashir Uddin sent a letter to United States Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer on the same day. The Bangladesh Embassy in Washington delivered those two letters to the White House and to the USTR office on the same day.
The virtual meeting between the USTR and commerce ministry officials was held on Wednesday, two days after Bangladesh sent those letters.
Diplomatic sources stated that in the context of the two letters from Bangladesh, the US asked to know specifically what steps Bangladesh wants to take to eliminate the trade deficit with the US. To put it in simple words, the US is interested in knowing Bangladesh’s action plan to reduce the trade deficit between the two countries.
The commerce adviser stated in the letter sent to the USTR that 190 items on Bangladesh’s tariff list are duty-free with zero per cent tariff. And, there are plans to add another 100 items to the duty-free list.
The letter also mentioned that Bangladesh has been paying a 15 per cent tariff on all items exported to the US since the US government withdrew the generalised system of preferences (GSP) facility on Bangladeshi goods.
On the other hand there is an average of 6.1 per cent tariff on products imported from the US. Of that, there’s no tariff on importing cotton and only 1 per cent tariff on importing scrap iron, it stated.
It was also stated in the letter that Bangladesh has taken up various reforming initiatives to reduce tariff rates, remove non-tariff barriers and to make mutual trade more profitable. Those initiatives include updating import policies, simplifying the customs procedures, protecting intellectual property rights, trademark and patent protection, and so on.
Meanwhile, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA) in the US, Nicole Ann Chulick is arriving in Dhaka next Tuesday on a four-day official visit.
After Donald Trump took oath as the US president on 20 January, Chulick is the first senior-level representative of the US to come to visit Bangladesh.
Several senior officials from the foreign ministry stated that Nicole Ann Chulick will discuss various aspects of the relationship between the two countries with top-level representatives of the interim government during her visit to Bangladesh. The issue of Trump’s reciprocal tariffs is expected to come up in the discussion.
Chulick may discuss the reform process of the interim government and talk especially about US support for the democratic transition.