U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that its Area Port of Champlain of New York will hold a "Trade Day" on March 28, 2012. This event will provide an opportunity for members of the trade community to meet with the CBP and other government officials who are responsible for facilitating the importation of goods while enforcing the various trade laws. There is no cost to attend this event, but on-line registration will be required. Register for the event here. There will be no formal presentations as CBP encourages participants to bring their questions and to interact one-on-one with the regulatory professionals. Representatives from government agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Fish & Wildlife (FWS), will also be on hand to answer questions.

This summary report highlights the most active textile and apparel tariff preference levels from U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s March 12, 2012 “Quota Weekly Commodity Status Report.” It also lists the TRQ commodities on CBP’s weekly March 12, 2012 “TRQ/TPL Threshold to Fill List.”¹

In early January 2012, U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued instructions for the ten weekly Special Import Quota announcements for Upland Cotton that were issued by the USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation. CBP also listed the dates and quantities for each of the ten. In February and March, CBP added weekly Special Quotas 22 - 26, and Special Quotas 1-3. CBP's instructions, with the new Special Quota 4 are summarized below. (Note that ITT has corrected the typos in the "buy date" column.)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is requesting comments by May 11, 2012 on an existing information collection concerning the Application to use the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). CBP proposes to extend the expiration date of this information collection with no change to the burden hours or to the information collected.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:

A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Web site as of March 13, 2012, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. These messages are available by searching on the listed CBP message number at http://addcvd.cbp.gov.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted changes to the Customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) since January 2012, which include the following changes related to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS or KFTA):

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued notice that it is has created a new webpage for information on the U.S. - Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA), that is effective for goods entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption on or after March 15, 2012. The web page currently has links to (i) CBP's implementation instructions, (ii) the text of the agreement on USTR's website, (iii) the (3-page) Presidential proclamation as published in the Federal Register (it begins on page 8), (iv) the ITC report containing the detailed Annexes to the Proclamation, and (iv) the KORUS Implementation Act passed by Congress and signed into law by the President.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues: