U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a memorandum announcing that the 2012 tariff rate quota for dried milk and dried cream provided for in Chapter 4, Additional U.S. Note 9 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule will open on January 3, 2012 with a low-duty quantity of 99,500 kg.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a memorandum announcing that the 2012 tariff rate quota on milk (whole) and cream provided for in Chapter 4, subheading 0401.20 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule will open on January 3, 2012 with a low-duty quantity of 11,356,236 liters.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a memorandum announcing that the 2012 tariff rate quota on infant formula provided for in Chapter 19, Additional U.S. Note 2 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, will open on January 3, 2012 with a low-duty quantity of 100,000 kg.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a memorandum announcing that the 2012 tariff rate quota for chocolate and low-fat chocolate crumb provided for in Chapter 18, Additional U.S. Note 3 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule will open on January 3, 2012.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a new CSMS notice asking the trade to disregard its November 14, 2011 CSMS notice #11-000282, which contained explanatory information and links to the draft Customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) Chapter and message set for CBP's test of the simplified entry capability in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). The explanatory information in this new CSMS notice is the same, and states the CATAIR chapter/message set is in draft form, and it does not reflect a final document. However, the new CSMS notice has updated links for the draft CATAIR Chapter/Message Set, which is available here, and the sample CATAIR message, which is available here.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have issued the following news releases:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated list of companies/persons offering sea Automated Manifest System data processing services to the trade community.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a summary of changes for the Automated Export System Trade Interface Requirements (AESTIR) that were effective on November 9, 2011. The following were added to Appendix O - DDTC ITAR Exemption Codes (available here):

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the minutes of the October 4, 2011 Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) meeting. At this meeting, CBP and COAC discussed topics including the role of the broker, simplified entry and summary, intellectual property rights enforcement, antidumping and countervailing duties, the global supply chain, etc.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the November 2011 Change Log for the Customs Automated Manifest Interface Requirements (CAMIR). On October 24, 2011, new Error Codes 490 through 530, except 506 and 516, were added to Appendix L: Truck Manifest Error Codes on pages 15 - 20. Appendix L is available here.