Although the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee has been pushing to exclude Chinese goods from de minimis (see 2403060089), interviews this week with a half-dozen members of the 42-person committee show the momentum for changing the law is fairly muted.
CBP will update ACE April 13 to enforce a shorter time frame requirement for filing type 86 entries, the agency said in a March 21 CSMS message. This announcement follows a Jan. 16 Federal Register notice that, among other changes, shortened the deadline for filing type 86 entries from 15 days after arrival -- the same as the deadline for formal entries -- to “upon or prior to arrival” of the shipment (see 2401120070).
The funding package that is expected to pass Congress later this week adds $19,968,000 in funding for DHS to detect and detain goods produced with forced labor over the amount in last year's budget. The funding, which is meant to be spent before the end of September this year, dedicates $114.5 million annually to enforcing the ban on the importation of goods made with forced labor.
The Commerce Department is amending the final results of a countervailing duty administrative review on certain corrosion-resistant steel products from South Korea (C-580-879) to align a duty calculation for Hyundai Steel Company with the final decision in a court case challenging the original administrative review results. In the final results of that review, covering calendar year 2018, Commerce assigned to Hyundai Steel Company, the mandatory respondent, a CV duty cash deposit rate of 0.51%.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Commerce Department is amending the final results of an antidumping duty administrative review on steel nails from Oman (A-523-808) based on the final decision in a court case challenging those final results.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
International Trade Commissioners grappled with how they should fulfill the administration's request for a report on the export competitiveness of the Bangladeshi, Indian, Cambodian, Indonesian and Pakistani apparel sectors over the last 11 years -- is it to uncover how those countries' successes could offer lessons to other developing countries that want to industrialize? Is the success of Bangladesh, which is near to crossing the threshold into a middle-income country largely on the strength of its garment sector, a country with an "unnatural and unfair advantage," because of its suppression of unions and wages, as the AFL-CIO's Eric Gottwald asserted?
FedEx rejected Prosperous America CEO Michael Stumo's characterization of the company as being involved in drug trafficking. Stumo on March 6 accused both FedEx and UPS of being "drug mules" (see 2403060089), because they are conduits for fentanyl entering in the de minimis environment. The company "has extensive security measures in place to deter and detect the use of our networks for illegal purposes, and we have a long history of close collaboration with law enforcement and regulatory authorities to quickly identify and prevent unlawful uses of our networks," a FedEx spokesperson said. "This includes illegal shipments such as illicit fentanyl."
A bipartisan bill has been introduced that would set country-by-country de minimis levels, instruct the administration to reconsider U.S. tariffs "with the focus on the principle of reciprocity" for most favored nation rates, and open a dialogue with Mexico and Canada on allowing Costa Rica and Uruguay to join USMCA.