The International Trade Administration (ITA) frequently issues notices on antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty orders which Broker Power considers to be "minor" in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued and neither announce nor cause any changes to an order's duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period.

The 2004 Schedule B is now available on the Bureau of Census' (Census) Web site at www.census.gov/foreign-trade/schedules/b/index.html for downloading, searching and browsing.

¹ The ITA states that only the 2002 final results CV rate will affect the CV cash deposit rate for subject merchandise on and after the publication of the final results of these four reviews.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site various materials related to the January 27-29, 2004 meeting of the Trade Support Network (TSN).

The State Department's Washington File has reported that trade officials from the 34 democratic nations of the Western Hemisphere were unable to craft a common and balanced set of rights and obligations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and agreed to recess on February 6, 2004. According to the Washington File, a U.S. trade official has stated that FTAA negotiations are set to resume in March. (Washington File Pub, dated 02/09/04, available at http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=February&x=20040209170029ASrelliM0.971554&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html)

(a) These four companies each have a de minimis AD rate (Ferrara: 0.24%, Lensi: 0.36%, Pagani: 0.21%, and Pallante: 0.12%); no cash deposits will be collected although suspension of liquidation will continue.

The Census Bureau has posted to its Web site a list of 174 Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) numbers that are not valid for reporting exports (either on a paper Shipper's Export Declaration (SED) or Automated Export System (AES) equivalent) as of January 1, 2004.

According to trade and U.S. government sources, effective from February 2, 2004 through April 30, 2004, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is detaining or sending to a laboratory for testing, importations of socks from at most 22 targeted countries, in order to verify their country of origin.

In the February 4, 2004 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (CBP Bulletin) (Vol. 38, No. 6), CBP issued notices (a) revoking a classification ruling on seats for fork-lift trucks, and (b) revoking a classification ruling on flushed pigment color preparation. CBP states that it is also revoking any treatment it has previously accorded to substantially identical transactions that are contrary to its position in these notices.

Travel Warnings are issued when the State Department decides, based on all relevant information, to recommend that Americans avoid travel to a certain country. The following have been issued since BP's most recent update: