CBP has postponed indefinitely an enhancement within ACE that would withhold the release of de minimis shipments that exceed the $800 per person/per day threshold, according to the February development and deployment schedule released last week.
CBP plans to double down on implementing President Donald Trump's America First trade policy, according to federal officials speaking during the quarterly meeting of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee, held in Atlanta on March 5.
Rep. Linda Sanchez of California, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, criticized President Donald Trump's executive actions, predecessor Joe Biden's rulemaking and a past bill that moved through Ways and Means that aimed to curtail de minimis in various ways. She called them all "half-measures or simply playing Whac-A-Mole with specific countries."
CBP is implementing a new Chapter 99 harmonized tariff schedule number to implement an increase in duties from 10% to 20% on imported products from China and Hong Kong that went into effect just after midnight on March 4 (see 2503030007).
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CBP posted the following documents for the March 5 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) meeting:
President Donald Trump, contrary to his commerce secretary's suggestion a day earlier that tariffs might be lower than 25% on Mexican and Canadian goods over border issues, told reporters March 3 that "tomorrow, tariffs, 25% on Canada, 25% on Mexico" will be imposed.
De minimis treatment will remain in effect for goods from Canada and Mexico if a 25% tariff on goods from those countries takes effect as scheduled March 4. Executive orders issued March 2 postpone the removal of de minimis for Canada and Mexico, ordered alongside the 25% tariff, until the commerce secretary notifies the President that “adequate systems are in place” to process and collect tariffs on formerly de minimis shipments.
From the removal of China from de minimis eligibility on Feb. 4 until the announcement that de minimis would be restored for China on Feb. 7, CBP rejected 79,995 bills of lading in the truck lane, 15 entries coming by truck, 271,662 bills of lading coming by air, and 285,005 entries coming by air. It also rejected 3,684 entries that arrived by ship.
WilmerHale International Trade Practice leader David Ross told panelists on a discussion of reciprocal trade that, "contrary to some earlier expectations, there are indications that the president is not planning to do a line-by-line" tariff adjustment to match tariff levels of trading partners, but, rather, to seek to quantify the costs of higher tariffs and other policies he sees as trade barriers, and to put a single tariff rate on the country's products.