U.S. Trade Policy and Your Business | June 29, 2018 | 11:00 am EDT
As you’ve seen in the news, the Trump Administration has established an aggressive trade agenda, with significant developments occurring almost daily. Many of these developments will impact the electronics industry. For example, an additional 25 percent tariff on more than 800 Chinese products is scheduled to go into effect on July 6. Those tariffs disproportionately target the electronics supply chain. Likewise, new duties and countervailing duties on aluminum will also increase costs for U.S.
By Nicolas Robin, IPC Senior Director, Europe
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) added lead metal on its Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern (SVHCs), on 27 June 2018, owing to its properties as a reprotoxic substance.
What does Candidate Listing mean for IPC Members?
Companies may have legal obligations resulting from the inclusion of lead metal in the Candidate List.
IPC D-70 E-Textiles Committee vice-chair Ben Cooper is running a new video series "30 in 30" through his IoClothes Forums. The forum discussions will showcase 30 videos in 30 days on topics that are critical to the continued growth of the smart textiles industry. A new video will be released every day for 30 consecutive days. If your company is developing smart textiles or has smart textiles on its roadmap, you will want to tune in for this “30 in 30” series.
The videos series launched Monday July 23, so don’t miss another installment.
By Nicolas Robin, Senior Director, IPC Europe
On July 25, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and U.S. President Donald Trump struck an agreement on transatlantic trade during President Juncker’s visit to Washington D.C. after three and a half hours of negotiations.
Most interestingly for IPC, both parties agreed to work together on a reform of the WTO to address unfair trading practices, including intellectual property theft, forced technology transfer, industrial subsidies, distortions created by state owned enterprises and overcapacity.
IPC president and CEO John Mitchell invites industry to join IPC’s Job Task Analysis Committee to help define key roles in the electronics industry and perform industry driven job task analysis for each of these roles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRBQEjVzYa4
IPC E-Textiles Committee Vice Chair, Ben Cooper discusses the fundamentals of e-textiles standards.
White paper will be provided free to IPC E-Textiles 2018 attendees.
The IPC E-Textiles Committee recognizes that for wearable smart textiles to flourish, there needs to be industry standards with reliability expectations for these products following multiple washing cycles.
In recent months, the U.S. Government has launched several initiatives that are roiling the waters of international trade.
NAFTA: In North America, the Trump administration prioritized one-on-one talks with Mexico, which produced a “handshake agreement” that was announced by President Trump on August 27. Canadian negotiators are in DC this week to rejoin the talks, with the hope of reaching a trilateral deal very soon. Both Mexico and Canada have insisted that any new deal must be negotiated among all three partners.
Because U.S.
In our ongoing efforts to represent IPC members’ interests in policy debates worldwide, IPC’s Vice President of Global Government Relations Chris Mitchell recently traveled to Brussels, Belgium, where he had a series of meetings with European Union policy makers, along with Nicolas Robin, IPC’s new senior director, Europe. Chris and Nicolas met with decision-makers from the European Commission, European Parliament, and Member State representatives to exchange views on core issues affecting IPC members.