International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Nov. 1-5 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The office of Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., released a discussion draft of much-anticipated customs modernization legislation that CBP has been considering as part of its 21st Century Customs Framework, according to an email from the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America. The trade group said Cassidy is seeking input on the draft legislation, and provided a one-page fact sheet, draft legislation and a section-by-section discussion summary for review.
The office of Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., started sharing a discussion draft of the Customs Modernization Act with the goal of avoiding unintended consequences for businesses that provide services to importers or that import. It's a bill that would strengthen CBP's hand in numerous areas. "We were working with CBP on the legislation and, then, this is now sending it to industry experts," Cassidy spokesperson Ty Bofferding said. That input will help shape the final bill, he said, and described this as the middle of the process. He could not predict whether a bill would be introduced in 2022.
RANCHO MIRAGE, California -- CBP has faced some delays with beginning the next term of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee, but it is very close to holding its first meeting, said AnnMarie Highsmith, CBP’s executive assistant commissioner in the Office of Trade. Highsmith also said the agency is on track to revamp its system for collecting customs duties, taxes and fees by 2024, and said its Section 321 data pilot has been a “big success.”
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Sept. 20-24 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
CBP's legislative proposal related to the 21st Century Customs framework may leave out discussion of possible alternative funding sources, said Garrett Wright, who leads the 21CCF effort as director of trade modernization at CBP's Office of Trade. "We are considering decoupling insufficient funding from the rest of this 21CCF package and focusing our efforts on what would be authorizing language," he said. Once "any one of those statutes gets passed, then we can have a conversation with the Hill about how to best fund."
Trade professionals and a trade scholar, talking on a panel that compared the Trump and Biden administrations' trade policies, said that not as much has changed on trade as might have been expected. Christine McDaniel, an economist at George Mason University, said she doesn't expect any of the Section 301 tariffs or the steel and aluminum tariffs to be lifted before the end of 2021. "I haven’t seen any indication they’re going to pull back on the tariffs," she said during a seminar at the Virginia Small Business Development Center on Sept. 21. "I’ve heard people say that the Trump trade policy is just being continued by the Biden administration, minus the rhetoric. You can make the argument for that."
CBP should take a different approach than the one it proposed for the rules of origin used on non-preferential claims and procurement under USMCA (see 2107010045), the Business Alliance for Customs Modernization said in comments to the agency. “BACM requests that CBP withdraw this [notice of proposed rulemaking] and engage the trade community in a dialogue about the type of rule of origin the United States should use for non-preferential purposes -- an objective test or a subjective test -- and then issue a new NPRM based on that input,” it said. BACM, which is made up of “large U.S.-based multinationals,” is the latest to come out against the proposal (see 2108120033 and 2108090027).
CBP recently posted question and answers from its Virtual Trade Week conference. The documents include information on forced labor (see 2107210040), e-commerce (see 2107210045), the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program (see 2107220054), the Global Business Identifier Initiative (see 2107230034), export modernization and the 21st Century Customs Framework (see 2107200067).
Customs Inefficiencies, Need for Mexico-Asia Supply Chains Limit Nearshoring's Appeal, Panelists Say
Representatives from manufacturing interests operating in Mexico said the COVID-19 pandemic has presented an opportunity to argue for locating more production in North America, for both reliability and speed, but there are still obstacles to making the argument for nearshoring as an answer to vulnerable supply chains. The president of the National Council of the Maquiladora and Export Manufacturing Industry and the director of global trade compliance for Illinois-headquartered manufacturer Regal Beloit spoke at the Wilson Center's "Building a Competitive U.S.-Mexico Border" conference, which was held Aug. 10 and 11.