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Among the countries mentioned, in addition to Peru, are Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, India, Japan, South Korea. Also Chile and Colombia.
According to a White House report published late last week, some forty countries, including Peru and other important Washington trading partners, serve as a point for re-shipping primarily Chinese products to the United States, as a model to circumvent tariffs.
According to the report titled "The Great Transshipment Scam," these countries and the European Union (EU) have enabled tariff evasion worth US$60 billion in trade. The White House also cited other U.S. government and private sector reports that estimated the volume of transshipment between US$30 billion and US$40 billion.
The denounced practice consists of performing the final assembly of Chinese products in a different country so that they are not considered "made in China," states the document published last Thursday.
This allows companies to send finished products to the United States from countries with lower customs tariffs, the U.S. government points out. Likewise, it highlights that around forty countries "present a high risk of re-shipping" products, seeing there a "network that operates both in production lines and in logistics lines." For Washington, this practice is illegal.
"For years, China has been carrying out a genuine scam by re-shipping products, masking their origin during transit through some forty countries, robbing our budget of tens of billions of dollars," said Donald Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro during a telephone press conference.
In his statements, Navarro emphasized that Trump has promised to end this practice through higher tariffs and a better-protected border.
"A Chinese engine in a Vietnamese recliner is still a Chinese engine and it's an American job destroyed. President Trump has promised to end this confiscation through higher tariffs and a better-protected border," he added.
The 40 countries are generally grouped into three levels, according to the absolute volumes of goods linked to China. Level 1 includes Canada, the European Union (EU), India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan. Level 2 is composed of Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam. Level 3 includes Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Kenya, Morocco, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries.
It is worth noting that the USTR has included provisions to reduce transshipment in many of the trade agreements it has negotiated with different countries since Donald Trump imposed his global "Liberation Day" tariffs last year.
However, the trade agency continues to work on defining the necessary "rules of origin" to help assess where a product is manufactured and thus determine the appropriate tariff level.
