The 10% tariffs on Canadian non-alloyed unwrought aluminum will be refunded back to Sept. 1, and the tariffs won't return unless Canadian exporters exceed either 70,000 tons or 83,000 tons in that category (see 2009150040), the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said on Sept. 15. The office said the limits start at 83,000 for the current month, then go to 70,000, then back to 83,000, then back to 70,000 for December. USTR did not say the tariffs would definitely return if Canadian exporters exceed these numbers by at least 5%, and suggested that if Canadian exporters reduced the next month's shipments by the same amount of the overage, that would satisfy USTR.

House Trade Subcommittee staffers are working “to make sure” that the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act gets a vote before Sept. 30, when the program expires, a Democratic trade staffer said Sept. 15. She said that the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program will not be voted on this month. Several Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee had said they wanted GSP to hitch a ride with CBTPA, including the committee's top Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.

The Federal Maritime Commission said its May rule on detention and demurrage charges (see 2004290037) is helping to reduce unfair penalties imposed by carriers, but industry said the fees are continuing and the FMC’s guidance is not being followed. The rule “at first seemed to be a great victory,” said Rich Roche, vice president of international transportation at Mohawk Global Logistics, speaking during a virtual conference hosted by the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America Sept. 14. But Roche, who is also the chair for the NCBFAA’s Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier Subcommittee, said some carriers increased their demurrage and detention fees the same week the rule was finalized.

Four companies and a “training center” in the Xinjiang region of China will be subject to withhold release orders, CBP said Sept. 14. Despite some expectations otherwise (see 2009090053), the new WROs don't apply to Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which would have amounted to a more “regional” approach by the agency. CBP is still looking at broader restrictions on cotton, textile and tomato products from the region under a WRO, but is undertaking further “legal analysis” on the issue, Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Kenneth Cuccinelli said during a call with reporters.

CBP is developing a “hybrid” process for low-value shipments based on the lessons from the low-value shipment data and Entry Type 86 pilots, Jim Swanson, CBP director-cargo and conveyance security and controls, said during a CBP Virtual Trade Week session Sept. 10. “We are looking at what a hybrid is going to look like,” he said. “What kind of process can collect this additional information from the party who owns it, get it in an early enough time for safety and security and enforcement perspective?” he said.

A vinyl tile supplier challenged the extension of tariffs to cover the third list of goods from China using Section 301 tariff authority, in a lawsuit filed Sept. 10 at the Court of International Trade. Represented by lawyers at Akin Gump, HMTX Industries and subsidiaries Halstead and Metroflor said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative overstepped the Section 301 statute when it made more goods subject to the tariffs 12 months after the beginning of the investigation. The law doesn't provide authority for the government to “litigate a vast trade war for however long, and by whatever means, they choose,” the company said.

With only 20 days left before expiration, lead sponsor Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., said she hopes her colleagues will support a clean reauthorization of the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act, and that she fears that trying to move this bill with a Generalized System of Preferences benefits program expansion and renewal will cause delays. She said that the most recent report on the program from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said all eight countries are in compliance with their obligations, including labor rights.

CBP is seeing an uptick in companies pulling out of the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, Manuel Garza, CBP director of CTPAT in the Office of Field Operations, said. “Because of COVID, we have seen an increase in the number of companies that have withdrawn from the program,” he said. The program still has about 11,400 total members and 315 trade compliance members, he said while speaking at a CBP Virtual Trade Week session Sept. 9. Some 53.4% of U.S. imports by value are CTPAT-certified, according to a CBP presentation.

The USMCA technical corrections bill seems to have stalled out on the Hill, as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said at a meeting a month ago, he was seeing there was not unanimity among Democrats, and without that, it cannot be done quickly. A Senate Finance Committee spokesman said, “The bottom line is that it’s not clear to us whether certain Democrat senators who voted against USMCA would hold up technical corrections should a package come up for a unanimous consent vote.”

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said he's not for an extreme version of free trade, because maintaining manufacturing jobs in the U.S. that provide a decent standard of living is a higher priority than promoting efficiency in business. “While that is an objective, it shouldn’t be the primary objective,” Lighthizer said in a talk at Catholic University conducted over Zoom on Sept. 8.