Brett Fortnam

For some reason I think I'm going to need some extra caffeine today.

You can say you "listened" to it. "Reading" and "listening" are distinct actions even if both are ways to consume media.

I second this. Might add a 2a about getting a damned downfield receiver...

"Well, who says life is fair? Where is that written? Life isn't always fair."

Seems really unfair right now. #RIPRobReiner

Former USTR Robert Lighthizer has a pretty good reading list if you ask me.

www.mckinsey.com/capabilities...

iykyk

Picture of the Pope at the mic.

I said maybeeee
You're gonna be the one who saves meeeee

Hear me out -- instead of the Avalanche, we call them the Colorado Wildberry Pop-Tarts. Would the Sabres still lose to a breakfast pastry? Of course. But maybe we would be just a little less miserable watching it. #sabresafterdark

“People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” - Rogers Hornsby

(May the waiting commence…)

I chuckled...

this rocks. when indiana edu killed the student newspaper, Purdue stepped up, printed the forbidden issue, drove it to Bloomington and stocked the boxes.

I will gladly join you on this hill.

1. A giant hug from one of the kiddos.
2. The sound of the ball hitting the glove.
3. Ripping the entire peanut butter lid cover off in one swift tear.
4. Starting (and finishing) a book.
5. Hearing 'I want to go to bed' from the toddler.

Nah. I can't imagine any difficulty negotiating on trade with India.

some of you need to make like travis kelce and engage with a tailor swiftly

My point being that the administration is known to take a wide view of what constitutes "national security." The input BIS asks for is pretty trade-standard stuff. I just wonder if some non-trade security risks are identified.

I don't think harm to the domestic industry matters here. The administration might be able to say that having wind turbines is a national security threat because they're killing all the whales, so we have to ban them all.

Until we see something to implement the administration's new view of transshipment, I think CBP is applying the 40% transshipment rate under the traditional definition. (14/fin)

So we have no idea how they want to implement it. Rules of origin are hugely bureaucratic. This is not a simple change. I wrote about some of the complications here: insidetrade.com/daily-news/n...

(13/n)

Now we haven't seen how the administration is going to implement this new idea on transshipment/rules of origin. We haven't seen any announcement or guidance from Customs. I would think that we would have to see at least a Federal Register notice to change the how we look at rules of origin. (12/n)

I just spoke with a senior Thai official involved in trade talks with the United States. He asked not to be named because of a non-disclosure agreement that he signed with the U.S. government, but gave a revealing look into how the U.S. is calculating the “rules of origin” on goods, a key factor in determining whether something is considered to have been indirectly shipped via another country — known as a transshipment — to bypass tariffs. Senior officials in Southeast Asia say the United States is setting rules unilaterally to define what constitutes a locally made product, based on a calculation that involves raw materials, overheads and the cost of labor. Based on this, the Trump administration recently asked whether Thailand could make goods that are considered 70 percent locally made, according to the Thai official. He said the Thais did not respond because they felt the figure was too onerous.

The U.S. wants this in more of its tariff deals. This from the New York Times this morning: www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...

(11/n)

This is not the administration's first mention of this. A senior admin official briefed reporters on the U.S.-Indonesia framework and said the same thing. I wrote about it here: insidetrade.com/daily-news/i...

(10/n)

Lutnick is clearly not talking about that here. All sorts of goods have 30% content from a third country. If a textile company imports its yarn to produce a shirt, Lutnick seems to be saying that's transshipment and subject to a higher tariff. (9/n)

Note: Substantial transformation means that the good underwent a fundamental change in form, appearance, nature, or character. This fundamental change normally occurs as a result of processing or manufacturing in the country claiming origin. Additionally, this change adds to the good’s value at an amount or percentage that is significant, compared to the value which the good (or its components or materials) had when exported from the country where it was first made or grown.

The difference between transshipment and, well, the supply chain hinges on "substantial transformation." Commerce defines it as: (8/n)

“So that’s the idea, which is if it’s your country, you pay your tariff and if it actually has significant content, like 30 percent from any other country, it should be taxed at that other country’s tariff, and that’s a higher tariff, obviously.”

But he immediately follows that with something else entirely. Now, he says, a good with just 30% content from a third country gets hit with a higher tariff rate. (7/n)

“It’s one thing to set a tariff. So we set a tariff on Vietnam of 20 percent. But that’s for Vietnamese goods. If some other country, let’s say China, wants to send things to Vietnam and have Vietnam then sell them to America, that comes with 40 percent. So, China wants to send stuff to America, let’s just do it through China. Let’s stop this nonsense of sending it through other countries.”

Here we get a basic definition of transshipment. (6/n)

Trump extending China trade truce feels likely to happen: Howard Lutnick | Fox Business Video U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick discusses President Donald Trump's potential trade agreement with China and Apple's new $100 billion investment in the U.S. on 'Mornings with Maria.'

Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick touched on this during a Fox Biz interview this morning: www.foxbusiness.com/video/637665... (5/n)

There are other, legal types of transshipment, but we're not going to focus on those right now. (4/n)