On the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the White House said that, beginning March 10, there will be a 200% tariff on Russian aluminum exports, including derivative products, and, beginning on April 10, aluminum articles from other countries that used any aluminum from Russia will also be tariffed at 200%, unless those third countries also impose 200% tariffs on imported Russian aluminum.
CBP is extending until April 14 its deadline for customs brokers to submit lists of all current employees in the ACE portal, the agency said in a CSMS message. The deadline was previously Feb. 17. The extension will “give brokers additional time to comply with the requirements and allow for implementation of technical fixes in ACE,” CBP said. Brokers are required to report all current employees, including those not engaged in customs business, to CBP under the recent customs modernization final rule.
A panel ruled for Mexico and Canada on how the USMCA auto rules of origin should be interpreted, saying the U.S. is in breach of its agreement by conditioning a longer period to comply for auto exporters, known as an alternative staging regime, on requirements that are not in the USMCA text or the uniform regulations.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is extending tariff exclusions for 352 products from China that had been scheduled to expire Dec. 31. Those exclusions will now last until Sept. 30.
The Commerce Department is setting new antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam -- though collection is on hold per a presidential proclamation and subsequent Commerce regulation -- after finding imports from the four countries are circumventing AD/CVD orders on solar cells from China in the preliminary determination of an anti-circumvention inquiry.
Customs brokers must restructure by Feb. 17 any powers of attorney they had previously executed with freight forwarders or other third parties to satisfy a new requirement that the POAs be directly executed with the importer of record or drawback claimant, CBP said in a CSMS message Dec. 1.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is extending exclusions from Section 301 China tariffs for 81 products related to the COVID-19 pandemic through February 2023, it said in a notice released Nov. 23. The exclusions, originally granted Dec. 29, 2020, were scheduled to expire Nov. 30, USTR said. “In light of the continuing efforts to combat COVID, the exclusions have been extended for an additional 90 days, through February 28, 2023,” USTR said in an emailed announcement.
CBP on Nov. 23 issued a new withhold release order banning imports of raw sugar and sugar-based products produced in the Dominican Republic by Dominican sugar giant Central Romana, it said in a news release. The WRO takes immediate effect. According to a USDA report issued in April, Central Romana accounted for 59% of Dominican sugar production in the 2021-2022 sugar marketing year, and took 62.84% of the U.S. tariff rate quota for raw sugar in fiscal year 2021.
CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus resigned Nov. 12. According to news reports, Magnus, who was confirmed by the Senate 11 months ago, was asked to resign last week by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and had originally refused. Deputy CBP Commissioner Troy Miller will manage the agency again until another presidential appointee can be confirmed, Mayorkas said in an email to staff, The Washington Post reported.
CBP will delay until Dec. 15 its deployment of a new mandatory data element in ACE for goods with a country of origin of China, said a CBP spokesperson Oct. 26. The new UFLPA Region Alert capability in ACE will use a new mandatory data element for the Chinese manufacturer’s postal code to generate a warning message when a Uyghur region postal code has been provided, according to an earlier update to the agency’s ACE development schedule that had listed a scheduled deployment in November.