WCA March 2020

From the Americas

States ever hope to reach an interim agreement on trade. Ministry spokesman Gao Feng told reporters, “The Chinese side believes that if the two sides reach a phase one deal, tariffs should be lowered accordingly.” On 7 November, Mr Gao had said China and the United States must simultaneously cancel some existing tariffs on each other’s goods for both sides to reach a phase one trade deal, but how much tariffs should be cancelled could be negotiated. Completion of a phase one deal between the two economies was initially expected in November 2019, in advance of a slew of US tariffs set to come into operation on 15 December and affecting around $156bn of Chinese imports. Discussions continued over “core issues of concern”, but with rising tensions over non-trade issues: China warned that continued calls for a tougher response to Beijing’s treatment of Uighurs in the Chinese region of Xinjiang would affect bilateral cooperation. However, an advisor to Beijing was quoted, “Both leaders have talked about reaching a deal, and officials are now finishing the work,” and thought it unlikely China that would retaliate by releasing its “unreliable entities list”, aimed at punishing firms deemed harmful to Chinese interests. In October 2019, a Chinese government source told Reuters that Beijing could wait to publish the list until the trade situation with the United States is at its most tense. Negotiators realise that lowering tariffs for a pact that fails to address intellectual property and technology transfer issues will not be viewed as a good deal for the United States. Calls to the Canadian government to cut the cost of business Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) has asked the government to cut the cost of doing business in Canada. The statement read: “If the political parties are serious about wanting to grow Canada’s economy, they must consider solutions to improve business competitiveness in Canada and incentivise manufacturers to invest in new technology by reducing the costs of doing business. We suggest the government conduct comprehensive tax reform to reduce the tax burden and encourage investments.” Canadian manufacturers have a low productivity rate, and are believed to invest less than their international counterparts because, compared to other jurisdictions, taxes and regulations make it expensive to operate in Canada. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), business capital investment in Canada grew by only 6 per cent in the last ten years, while labour productivity in Canadian manufacturing increased by only 20 per cent over the last 15 years, compared with

Google employees have since called for a transparent, open investigation of its HR, and its “abysmal handling of employee complaints related to working conditions, discrimination, harassment and retaliation.” “Google’s HR department is broken. Over and over again it prioritises the company, and the reputation of abusers and harassers, over their victims. The collateral damage is all around us. Time is up. We need third party investigators.” Deep space peace keeper SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has carried the latest in artificial intelligence-powered workers to the International Space Station. The Crew Interactive Mobile Companion 2 (CIMON 2) is a spherical droid equipped with microphones, cameras and emotion-sensing voice detectors. Matthias Biniok, the lead architect for CIMON 2, told reporters, “The relationship between an astronaut and CIMON is really important. It’s trying to understand if the astronaut is sad; is he angry, joyful, and so on.” Using algorithms built by IBM Corp and data from CIMON 1, CIMON 2 will be “more sociable with crew members”. It will test technologies that could prove essential for future manned missions into deep space, where long-term isolation and lags in communication with Earth are likely to pose challenges to astronauts’ mental wellbeing. Designed to help astronauts conduct scientific experiments, CIMON 2 is also being trained to help mitigate “groupthink” — a behavioural phenomenon where isolated groups can be driven to make irrational decisions. “Group-thinking is really dangerous,” Mr Biniok said, adding that in times of conflict or disagreement among astronauts, CIMON could serve as “an objective outsider that you can talk to if you’re alone, or could actually help let the group collaborate again.” Big Tech faces further scrutiny The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is turning its attention to Amazon.com Inc’s cloud-computing business, Amazon Web Services, and software companies are being questioned about Amazon’s practices. The move is just one of a multitude of antitrust probes into major technology companies currently underway by the federal government, state attorneys general and congress. FTC’s technology enforcement division has focused its investigations of multi-sided platforms on illegal conduct and mergers that had previously won approval under antitrust laws. In addition to the FTC probes, the Justice Department and House of Representatives Judiciary Committee are investigating the big four – Facebook Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google, Apple Inc and Amazon. At the end of the year, tariffs still a matter of dispute The to and fro of trade tariffs talks between China and the US continued through to the end of the year. In mid-December, the Chinese commerce ministry was insistent that tariffs must be cut if China and the United

nearly 50 per cent in the USA. Gill Watson – Features Editor

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Wire & Cable ASIA – March/April 2020