United States: International Trade & Investment

International trade keeps changing, but many companies are still running on old assumptions. Cindy Allen uses Taylor Swift’s “Right Where You Left Me” to ask whether the trade community is holding onto ideas about tariffs, sourcing, and supply chains that were formed in a very different environment.

Indeed, tariff engineering can do more than lower a company’s duty bill. On Simply Trade, hosts Lalo Solorzano and Andy Shiles talk with Hal Berman and John Petitte of Trade Insight. Together, they explain how tariff engineering works best as a cross-functional strategy.

Tariff classification rewards precision. GTC instructor Arthur O’Meara tells host Lalo Solorzano the General Rules of Interpretation are the foundation every classifier needs. These six rules govern how products move through the Harmonized System. Skipping past them leads to shortcuts that don’t hold up under scrutiny.

The time has come. The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security’s (“BIS”) Affiliates Rule that was postponed last year is slated to take effect November 10, 2026, barring another extension. The Rule was initially set to start November 10, 2025 but was extended for a year, effectively giving exporters one-year notice to conduct due diligence within its customer base to ensure compliance with the Rule.

With the ever-growing barrage of rhetoric over just how, when, and if, AI will kill us all, the conversation also lends itself to, do we believe it will be AI that kills us, or a bad actor using AI? If I showed you a picture of East Asia at night from space and pointed out that you can’t see North Korea for the lack of available electricity, (It’s 99% blacked out, and only Pyongyang shows a small cluster of light) would you think for a minute that they would have the tech savvy, and high end software, or even hardware, necessary to steal $6.7 billion in crypto since 2017?

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a proposed rule, “Regulation Crypto Assets,” 91 Fed. Reg. 54510, on August 21, 2026 (FRN). Comments are due by October 20, 2026. Comments should reference File Number S7-2026-27 and may be submitted through the SEC’s internet comment form

As forced labor import bans proliferate globally, traditional M&A due diligence methodologies are proving inadequate for identifying and pricing supply chain risks that can instantly freeze inventory at borders and destroy deal value. This analysis examines why conventional approaches fail to detect upstream vulnerabilities in multi-tier supply chains and proposes enhanced diligence frameworks that integrate customs enforcement priorities, origin-level traceability, and specialized contractual protections

The Trump Administration's Executive Order 14411 introduces sweeping changes to foreign importer of record (FIOR) rules that will fundamentally alter how Canadian businesses import goods into the United States. These new regulations eliminate informal entry options, impose stricter bonding requirements, and establish a minimum 50% penalty floor for non-compliance, placing unprecedented emphasis on accurate tariff classification, valuation, and origin declarations.

On September 16, 2026, President Trump issued a presidential memorandum titled “Restoring Reciprocity in Government Procurement”, directing the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the United States Trade Representative, in coordination with the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, to identify and take legally permitted steps to remove or restrict Canadian-origin items across the federal civil procurement system.