The Fish and Wildlife Service is suspending all trade in species listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species with a permit issued by Mexico, it said in a notice dated March 27. The suspension implements a directive from CITES issued in response to Mexico’s failure to protect the vaquita porpoise that will remain in effect until Mexico submits a CITES-approved compliance plan. “Effective immediately, all shipments containing CITES specimens traded for commercial purposes under an import permit, export permit, or re-export certificate issued by Mexico for the species, are subject to enforcement action,” the FWS said.

The Court of International Trade upheld the U.S. Trade Representative's Lists 3 and 4A tariff action under Section 301 on China in a widely-anticipated decision on March 17. After the tariffs were previously sent back over concerns of compliance with the Administrative Procedures Act, the USTR offered further explanations of its tariff decisions. Judges Mark Barnet, Claire Kelly and Jennifer Choe-Groves held that these explanations were not made impermissibly post hoc and cleared APA requirements.

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.

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.

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.