Suppliers are not really focusing on finding forced labor violations past a Tier 2 level, Pierfilippo Natta, KPMG's manager of Trade and Customs, said at a KPMG webinar Nov. 9. The survey that revealed that found 68% of companies surveyed only focused on supplier activity in Tier 1 and Tier 2, Natta said, while only 22% of those surveyed focused on Tier 3 and 19% on Tier 4.

President Donald Trump didn't clearly misconstrue the statute when he revoked a Section 201 tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on Nov. 13. Granting the president wider discretion to make modifications to Section 201 duties, Judges Alan Lourie, Richard Taranto and Leonard Stark said that the statute -- Section 2254(b)(1)(B) of the Trade Act of 1930 -- allows for trade-restricting modifications, as opposed to only trade-liberalizing ones.

NEW YORK -- Importers' service providers said CBP's inconsistency and lack of communication about why supply chain documentation was not enough -- or even was enough -- to prove that there was no connection to Xinjiang are the biggest headaches of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

NEW YORK -- The chair of the committee that puts together the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entity list told an audience from the apparel industry that the process is no "rubber stamp," and is instead a "meaningful process" involving investigations by agencies on the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force.

NEW YORK -- Apparel industry lobbyist David Spooner, speaking at the U.S. Fashion Industry Association annual conference, said employees of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative have indicated to him that the office "might actually sunset some of the tariffs," and that importers will be able to apply for a new product exclusion. "Hopefully this is the case," he added.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who earlier said the priority should be renewing the African Growth and Opportunity Act "as soon as possible and for a lengthy period," rather than making reforms to the trade preference program, has now put out a "discussion draft" that lays out some reform proposals.

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If a bill that unanimously passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee becomes law, CBP's Office of Trade would get rid of these job descriptions -- Import Specialist, Entry Specialist, National Account Manager, International Trade Specialist, Drawback Specialist and National Import Specialist -- and combine those duties all under the job of Global Trade Specialist. CBP has been asking for the change for about five years, according to a former government official now working in trade.

Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on China, said that policymaking around economic competition with China is "messy."

Under a newly introduced bill imposing a pollution fee, importers of record would have to pay a tax based on the percentage of the value of the imported good and calculated on the difference between the pollution intensity of that good's production in the country it's manufactured in and domestic production.