#Title US officials to arrive in Dhaka Sunday for tariff talks

REFAYET ULLAH MIRDHA

A United States trade delegation will arrive in Bangladesh on Sunday for meetings with commerce ministry officials on bilateral trade, progress on trade agreements and the reciprocal tariff imposed by the White House.

Brendan Lynch, assistant US trade representative for South and Central Asia, will lead the three-member team.

Dhaka hopes the discussions will pave the way for a further reduction in the revised 20 percent tariff imposed by President Donald Trump in August.

However, it is not yet clear how much the rate could be lowered, Commerce Secretary Mahbubur Rahman told The Daily Star over the phone yesterday.

Commerce Adviser Sk Bashir Uddin has said on several occasions that Bangladesh is continuing talks with the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) to push for a further cut in the tariff.

Rahman said the tariff issue would certainly be on the table during the talks, but any final decision would come from the Trump administration.

During the two-day visit, Dhaka and Washington will also review progress on the signing of the trade agreement, the commerce secretary added.

The US Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments over President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, taking up a fast-moving appeal that deals with the centrepiece of the administration’s economic agenda.

In the meantime, the tariffs will remain in place while the court hears the case.

President Trump is urging the justices to overturn a lower court ruling that found his administration acted unlawfully in imposing many of its import taxes.

Referring to this, Rahman said it was also not possible to give a timeline for when the two countries might sign the agreement on the 20 percent reciprocal tariff.

After months of negotiation with the USTR, the Trump administration set a 20 percent tariff on Bangladeshi goods, which came into effect on August 7 this year.

Bangladesh has been hoping that exports will grow under the new rate, which is lower than the tariffs faced by major competitors such as China and India.