Although the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee has been pushing to exclude Chinese goods from de minimis (see 2403060089), interviews this week with a half-dozen members of the 42-person committee show the momentum for changing the law is fairly muted.

The auto industry is grappling with a range of questions about how the EU’s upcoming forced labor-related rules will affect their supply chains, especially for individual car components, an auto industry official and lawyer said this week.

The funding package that is expected to pass Congress later this week adds $19,968,000 in funding for DHS to detect and detain goods produced with forced labor over the amount in last year's budget. The funding, which is meant to be spent before the end of September this year, dedicates $114.5 million annually to enforcing the ban on the importation of goods made with forced labor.

Shrimp farmed and processed in India is frequently produced by forced labor, with workers in debt bondage and some workers living in employer-supplied housing where they are rarely allowed to leave, according to a new investigation from Corporate Accountability Lab.

The American Apparel and Footwear Association's vice president for trade and customs policy is hearing that a higher competitive needs limitation will be part of a Generalized System of Preferences benefits program renewal.

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

The Court of International Trade on March 18 said that the U.S. waited too long to send surety firm Aegis Security Insurance Co. a bill for an unpaid customs bond on Chinese garlic imports that entered in 2004. Judge Stephen Vaden said that the government's eight-year delay in demanding the payment from Aegis "was unreasonable and a breach of contract." The court said the delay broke the "reasonable time requirement" -- an "implied contractual term."

CBP is adding an administrative protective order process for companies involved in Enforce and Protect Act investigations to access business confidential information of other "interested parties," so the companies can have full access to CBP's decision-making in a duty evasion investigation, the agency said.

CBP is asking solar companies about their corporate structure, overall supply chain, entries, accounting and financial practices, production, sales and sales and production reconciliations, law firm Morgan Lewis said in a March 13 blog post. The agency began sending the questionnaires in February to solar companies asking how they're guarding against the use of forced labor in their supply chains with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act top of mind for the agency (see 2402270061).

CBP ruled that the fallback method was appropriate for appraising several pharmaceutical products being imported for use in clinical trials. The ruling, dated Feb. 28, looked at three different valuation scenarios, each for pharmaceutical products that were provided to the importer conducting the clinical trial by related companies but were not actually sold.