The World Customs Organization should continue to use the Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate (SAFE) Trade for e-commerce rather than create a set of entirely new standards for that purpose, said Christa Brzozowski, Department of Homeland Security deputy assistant secretary for trade and transport. Brzozowski spoke Monday on a panel about the WCO at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America Government Affairs Conference. “We question whether there is value in creating sort of two distinct rules of the road, two distinct sets of tools for 'traditional flows' and 'e-commerce flows,'" she said. Instead, DHS would like to see the WCO “look and harken back to the bedrock principles of SAFE and not relitigate, not readjudicate, things we've spent a lot of time and effort to develop, but really try to identify those areas -- be it risk management, be it data, be it partnerships -- where the key characteristics of e-commerce and digitalization requires us to perhaps amend or update some of the compendium tools, ” Brzozowski said. There's also talk of a pilot to prevent counterfeiting and piracy, said Geodis’ Mary Jo Muoio. “This pilot is working with maritime transport industry to raise awareness, encourage them to know their customers" and “enhance their own risk profiling and information sharing” to prevent intellectual property rights violations, she said.

Congress needs to “instruct” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to bring a World Trade Organization case for violating WTO rules against unfair trade practices, testified Information Technology and Innovation Foundation President Rob Atkinson Wednesday before the House IT Oversight Subcommittee. Congress should “take a hard line on limiting most Chinese investment” in the U.S., including in Chinese-backed “tech accelerators,” said Atkinson. He urged limiting “ongoing science and technology cooperation” with China, "especially considering that much of that cooperation is lopsided,” he said. The Trump administration placed Trade Act Section 301 tariffs “on a wide array of Chinese exports in an effort to bring the Chinese government to the negotiating table,” said Atkinson. “It is not clear if this approach will succeed.” The “most important step” the U.S. can take is develop a “joint campaign with our allies” to curb bad Chinese behavior, he said, to make "it more likely that China feels like it has no choice but to play more by the rules.”

Coping with the U.S.-China trade war “continues to be a moving target,” said Mark Mondello, CEO of contract manufacturer Jabil on a Tuesday earnings call. “You wake up one day, there’s a tweet, you wake up 48 hours later, something else is going on,” said Mondello. “It’s a very complicated issue in terms of what’s going to be, how bad will it get.” There’s some “conversation” in the supply chain that the trade war is “just going to be kind of a little bit of a tit for tat, and then there’s people that have the opinion that it could extrapolate to something much bigger,” he said. If U.S. tensions with China “escalate in a way that we don’t anticipate, but if they were, it absolutely is going to affect our business, as it will everybody’s,” he said. Mondello personally and in dealing with customers tries “not to get too obsessive about how bad things can get,” he said. “We do planning scenarios internally on what we would do, but assuming this thing doesn’t blow up in a big way, I think Jabil’s really well-positioned.”

Tariffs took effect on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, including duties the tech industry fought unsuccessfully (see 1809120049). China retaliated later Monday with tariffs on $60 billion in imports from the U.S. President Donald Trump has threated to “immediately pursue” a fourth installment of tariffs on $267 billion worth of additional Chinese imports as a countermeasure. Micron and Voxx (see 1809210002) are among those accepting tariffs as a fact of life and increasingly turning their sights toward mitigation strategies. “Product-specific” exclusion requests are another option, emailed David Cohen, customs law expert with Sandler Travis. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative had sought exclusions on the first two rounds of tariffs that took effect July 6 and Aug. 23. “No decisions have been made on the thousands of requests,” Cohen said.

Micron Technology expects its gross margins to take a “near-term” hit “to the tune of 50 to 100 basis points” from the 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports that take effect Monday and are due to rise to 25 percent Jan. 1 (see 1809180035 and 1809180020), said Chief Financial Officer Dave Zinsner on a Thursday earnings call. Shares fell nearly 8 percent after hours and closed 2.9 percent lower Friday at $44.74. “We are working to gradually mitigate most of the impact from these tariffs over the next three to four quarters,” said Zinsner. “Clearly, tariffs are impacting us,” and reducing Micron’s exposure to the damage “obviously takes some time,” he said. “We have to do some things operationally to get ourselves in a place where it isn’t as impactful, and so, it’ll be a quarter or two probably before we start to see some benefit from the improvement there.” Micron argued unsuccessfully for removing from the Trump administration’s “retaliation list” the tariffs on 8473.30.11 printed circuit assemblies imported to the U.S., which include the “memory modules” it makes at the fab it owns in Xi’an, China.

President Donald Trump signed a national cyber strategy to coordinate defensive and offensive activities, National Security Adviser John Bolton said Thursday. The strategy was finalized in connection with rescinding an Obama-era directive requiring interagency coordination on offensive U.S. cyberattacks. Bolton called the reversal a warning sign for adversaries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. It's the first “fully articulated cyber strategy in 15 years,” Bolton said. Presidential policy directive 20, in 2012 by President Barack Obama, established an interagency framework for approving U.S. cyberattacks. The administration eliminated that directive several weeks ago, Bolton told reporters. The U.S. no longer has its hands tied, he said: “We’re going to do a lot of things offensively, and I think our adversaries need to know that. ... We’re not just on defense as we have been primarily.” U.S. Cyber Commander Paul Nakasone, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and FBI Director Christopher Wray agreed on the change Bolton said. The new plan recognizes public and private sectors have struggled to secure systems, said Bolton. Overcoming those challenges will require technical advances and a thriving tech sector, Bolton added. He cited the WannaCry cyberattack and a recent attack against Atlanta as evidence threats aren't going away. The 2015 Office of Personnel Management data breach is one type of attack the U.S. is looking to deter, Bolton said. Asked about the administration eliminating the top cyber policy adviser position (see 1805160046), Bolton said he inherited a duplicative staffing structure. Numerous senior directors -- for defense and intelligence, for example -- don't have coordinators, he said. The strategy emphasizes “promoting American prosperity,” “preserving peace through strength,” “advancing American influence” and securing a “cyber future.” It's an extension of Trump’s May 2017 cybersecurity executive order, the White House said. DOD said Tuesday the U.S. needs to collect intelligence in cyberspace to combat malicious efforts by China and Russia, which pose an unacceptable risk to the U.S. North Korea and Iran pose similar threats, officials said.

The Havfrue transatlantic subsea cable system will land at NJFX's New Jersey collocation campus, said a news release Tuesday. The system will link New Jersey and Denmark, with branch connections to Ireland and Norway, and is being built by a consortium including Aqua Comms, Google and Facebook, it said.

Joining tech, telecom and other heavyweights, Logitech opposed Part III of tariffs (see 1809130056) on Chinese goods imported to the U.S. over intellectual property disagreements between the superpowers. The manufacturer also was in the company of hundreds of others opposing tariffs on connected devices under two subheadings, commenting in docket USTR-2018-0026. If the Trump administration doesn't spare those goods, Logitech wants the U.S. Trade Representative to exempt tariffs on what's from “wholly foreign-owned enterprises” (WFOEs) in China. The company imported more than $250 million worth of such goods from China last year. Logitech’s IP and proprietary technology “is better protected at its WFOE in China” than it would be if entrusted to “a third-party manufacturer in any other country,” said the company. “Logitech’s intellectual property and proprietary technology actually would arguably be less protected if it were to source computer mice, video conference cams and webcams from unrelated third parties outside of China.” Attention now turns to how long the administration will take to publish its determination on which items on the proposed list will stay and which will go, when they will take effect and whether they will be assessed at 10 percent or 25 percent.

It's odd to be talking about blockchain in terms of regulatory policy, said Aaron Arnold, a fellow at Harvard University who studies trade controls to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The technology is designed to remove the intermediary and decentralize authority, said panelists on blockchain and trade security at the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank on security. A government blockchain verification system is inherently centralized, said Jonathan Tame, manager in Deloitte's technology practice. Arnold gave an example of an instance in which a Massachusetts supplier sent pressure transducers to its Chinese subsidiary, and then an employee there falsified documents about the package's contents and sent the equipment -- used to enrich uranium -- to Iran. If these transactions were on a distributed ledger, “would this have stopped the transshipment to Iran? No," he said. That’s not “to imply that blockchain or distributed ledger technologies have zero applications" here, he said. For a system with items subject to export controls tagged in an unalterable way that goes to a country where it's not allowed, the seller wouldn't be paid.

Comcast again pushed out the deadline for Sky shareholders to weigh in on its bid for takeover, now to Oct. 6, it said Wednesday. The company last month extended the August deadline to Wednesday (see 1808220054). Comcast said it's received acceptances representing 0.29 percent of ordinary share capital.