CBP will fully transition to its new Cargo Systems Messaging Service platform on July 1, it said in a CSMS message posted to the new platform. The message, which was not posted to CBP’s legacy system, says CBP will no longer update the old website after June 30, though it will remain available as an archive until Sept. 30, 2019, when the old system will be fully shut down.
CBP is planning to start a new pilot program related to e-commerce alongside the long-planned pilot for a new entry type for low-value shipments, said Laurie Dempsey, director of the intellectual property rights and e-commerce division at CBP. There's a "new pilot in the works related specifically to e-commerce," she said. "I don't have a lot of details to share with you at this point, but that also is taking a look at data in the e-commerce space and there will also be a Federal Register notice published around the same time as the Type 86," she said. Dempsey spoke June 27 while at the American Association of Exporters and Importers Annual Conference in Washington.
Suspension of liquidation and antidumping duty cash deposit requirements will take effect June 18 for imports of strontium chromate from Austria (A-433-813), after a correction to the Commerce Department's preliminary determination caused rates to increase above zero for Austrian exporters. Commerce had found no dumping in its May 17 negative preliminary determination, but the amended preliminary determination causes rates for Austrian exporters to rise above the de minimis threshold for AD duty investigations.
The International Trade Commission is launching an investigation into possible additions and removals of products from the Generalized System of Preferences program, it said in a June 7 press release. Conducted in response to a request from the U.S. trade representative, the investigation will inform USTR’s decisions on product eligibility in the ongoing 2018 GSP annual review. ITC and the USTR will also in the review consider whether to grant requests for de minimis and competitive need limitations waivers.
The New Democrats caucus, which includes the most pro-free-trade members in the party in the House of Representatives, has released a lengthy list of things they want to see in exchange for their votes for the new NAFTA ratification.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for May 28-31 in case they were missed.
CBP will announce a prototype test for type 86 e-commerce entries in the Federal Register very soon, according John Leonard, executive director of the CBP Office of Trade, Policy and Programs. Leonard, who was speaking at the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting in Laredo, Texas, on May 30, said the new entry type would be for de minimis shipments that have partner government agency requirements. Last month, CBP said it is aiming to publish a notice on the testing of the new Entry Type 86 in the fall. Those entry forms would provide data that would be helpful for risk segmentation, Thomas Overacker, CBP executive director, Cargo and Conveyance Security, said then (see 1904170008).
California's Kevin McCarthy, the leader of House Republicans, has said the new NAFTA only needs a "few votes" to get a majority in the House, where ratification will begin. But when asked by International Trade Today if his side has a sense of how many Republican "no" votes there might be, McCarthy said they haven't asked. In 1993, 43 Republicans voted against ratifying NAFTA.
Trade Partnership Worldwide President Laura Baughman stands by her organization’s February survey report that found levying Section 301 tariffs on all remaining $300 billion in Chinese imports in addition to other sanctions in effect would cause severe U.S. economic harm, she said in an email. President Donald Trump's chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow, in a Fox News Sunday appearance May 12, called the study flawed. He tried to make the case that any economic "consequences" would be "modest" and well worth it.
The Department of Justice and Selective Marketplace agreed to a settlement over allegations of illegal use of de minims exemptions, the DOJ said in a May 13 news release. The DOJ agreed to join the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Maine in March (see 1904190006) as part of a qui tam whistleblower suit. The company, which is based in England, will pay a total of $610,000 to resolve the suit, the DOJ said.