U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that on November 30, 2011, CBP officers at the Port of Newark, New Jersey seized a shipment of holiday lights with Consumer Product Safety Commission violations. CPSC alerted CBP to this shipment after it determined that this shipment had severely undersized wires and lacked replaceable fuses as an integrated part of the plug. These deficiencies can cause the overheating of the wires, potentially starting a fire. CBP seized a total of 308 cartons of holiday lights, with a domestic value of approximately $40,000. This was the first seizure of holiday lights by CBP in the New York-New Jersey area this season.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued two notices on the 2012 Morocco Free Trade Agreement (MFTA) duty-free tariff preference levels for certain textile and apparel products provided for in HTS Chapter 99, Subchapter XII, U.S. Note 64 (non-originating apparel and fabric) and U.S. Note 65 (yarn and knit fabric of AGOA cotton fiber).

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a final determination concerning the country of origin of certain laser-based multi-function office machines. CBP has concluded that the assembly and programming operations together convey the essential character of the laser-based multi-function office machines, and therefore, when they are assembled and programmed in Mexico, the country of origin for purposes of U.S. government procurement is Mexico.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that the 2012 annual user fee of $138 for each customs broker permit and national permit held by an individual, partnership, association, or corporation is due by January 20, 2012.

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

A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Web site as of December 27, 2011, 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 the weekly foreign currency exchange rate multipliers for the week ending December 23, 2011.

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

The Government Accountability Office has found that U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Border Security Fencing, Infrastructure and Technology (BSFIT) expenditure plan for fiscal year 2011 only satisfied 3 out of 10 legislative conditions that were laid out for the plan in the FY 2010 DHS Appropriations Act. While the plan satisfied conditions related to the northern border and funding priorities, it only partially satisfied or did not satisfy other conditions related to CBP's Secure Border Initiative (SBI)¹.

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