China's exports have decelerated as the Iran war starts to affect global demand and supply chains, according to Gary Ng, a senior economist for Asia Pacific at French bank Natixis.
"We worked hard," WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said, adding that the US and Brazil in particular "need more time" to work out their differences over the agreement to impose levies on cross-border online orders.
After Trump ended the de minimis exemption last year, purchasing an item straight from an international vendor, regardless of the item's value, meant incurring International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs. Now, thanks to a ruling by the Supreme Court that overturned Trump's IEEPA tariffs, and a ruling by the Court of International Trade ruled that all tariffs paid under IEEPA must be returned, buyers may be able to collect a refund.
WIPO is not merely a distant UN bureaucracy; it is a dynamic, fee-driven organization that has been undergoing significant operational and cultural transformation in recent years.
That's after Trump attempted to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for the first time as a vehicle for imposing tariffs, when he unveiled his "Liberation Day" duties last year. The tariffs were quickly challenged in court. While arguing the case last spring, Justice Department lawyers acknowledged that if the tariffs were deemed unlawful, then the government would issue refunds to the plaintiffs.
Nintendo of America is suing the US government, including the Department of Treasury, Department of Homeland Security and US Customs & Border Protection, over its tariff policy. The video game giant already raised prices on the Nintendo Switch in August 2025 in response to "market conditions" but has so far left the price of the newer Switch 2 console unchanged.
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)-an agency with the extraordinary power to block imports and, in turn, influence the direction of American technology policy-has drifted out of that balance. To align with the Trump Administration's intellectual property priorities and pro-investment agenda, the ITC is in urgent need of reform.
This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Sixth Circuit affirms a dismissal of a declaratory judgment suit after finding no federal question of law raised by the suit's copyright allegations; the EU's highest court says that EU member states can pass rules implementing a private copying levy against manufacturers of computer hard drive storage; the governments of the United States and Taiwan announce a relaxation of some reciprocal tariffs in response for a $250 billion investment in American chip capacity;
