Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told a senator who is opposed to the tariffs on imported solar panels that she cannot do much to speed up the anti-circumvention investigation on panels from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia (see 2204050052).
The Senate Finance Committee is talking about liberalizing trade with Ukraine, according to Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who represents many Ukrainian-Americans in his state. He told International Trade Today at the Capitol on April 27 that the proposals being discussed might be broader than just lifting Section 232 tariffs on Ukrainian steel. Lifting 25% tariffs on Ukrainian steel was argued for by Senate Finance Committee member Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
While the treasury secretary has said before that some of the tariffs on Chinese goods hurt America more than they hurt China (see 2107190046), and the U.S. trade representative has defended them, the White House has now said that the administration's review of its China trade policy is taking inflation into account.
With negotiations expected to begin in earnest soon on the House and Senate's trade packages, staffers in both chambers of Congress say there could be support for antidumping and countervailing duty reform and language around Section 301 tariff exclusions, but the likelihood of a dramatic de minimis change seems somewhat remote.
EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said he asked American officials this week for more flexibility in how the tariff rate quotas for European steel products are administered. He said that while actions of the Biden administration have "put things, tradewise, on a more positive track," in his view "the current system [for TRQs] seems to be quite rigid."
The director of CBP's Office of Trade told an audience that importers who are considering importing a good that has a new supply chain and are concerned about running afoul of the ban on imports of goods made with forced labor can submit a request for a binding ruling that the product's supply chain is free of forced labor. CBP Executive Assistant Commissioner AnnMarie Highsmith, speaking at a webinar hosted by the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law on April 20, noted she was not presenting CBP's official position in her remarks.
The CBP collected about $85.5 billion in duties in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2021, a 14.9% increase from the previous fiscal year, a recent report shows. The annual report also noted that there were 36.9 million entries during the fiscal year, which was higher than before the pandemic.
A Mexican union and a U.S. nonprofit have jointly filed a rapid response complaint against Panasonic Automotive's plant in Reynosa, Mexico. The Sindicato Nacional Independiente de Trabajadores de Industrias y de Servicios "Movimiento 20/32" (SNITIS) says more than 600 workers at the plant asked for SNITIS to be their new union, but the company is collaborating with a Confederación de Trabajadores de México (CTM) union. According to the complaint, there are about 2,000 workers at the plant, who make audio systems and screens for automobiles that are exported to the U.S. and to other markets.
Inaccurate invoices, charges for cargo that sits around because the ship left early, demurrage charges that start before the container reaches the terminal, charges for not retuning empty equipment when no appointments were available -- importers and brokers have many complaints about the detention and demurrage billing practices, and are telling the Federal Maritime Commission that they hope it standardizes how ocean carriers and marine terminals bill, and puts guardrails around their practices.
Given the depletion of fish in the ocean, and estimates that about 11% of U.S. seafood imports resulted from illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, a recent Congressional Research Service report said Congress may want to strengthen legislation tackling the issue.