U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a press release announcing that it is postponing the enforcement of the Free And Secure Trade (FAST) Card requirement for Border Release Advance Screening and Selectivity (BRASS) shipment drivers until May 1, 2005 for the first group of 40 ports.
U.S. Customs and Border Protections' January 2005 Modernization newsletter states that after a temporary suspension to install software upgrades, on January 31, 2005, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) plans to resuming its ACE Release 4 Truck Manifest Pilot in Blaine, Washington.
CBP has issued an administrative message announcing that the programming changes for the "issuer of house bill code" were implemented on January 26, 2005. CBP states that a problem was identified that caused a house issuer code to be rejected when it was valid, but this problem has been corrected. Effective immediately, CBP states that the guidelines mentioned in Adm 04-2311 should be followed. (See ITT's Online Archives or 01/27/05 news, 05012715, for BP summary of CBP's "issuer of house bill code" ABI transmission requirement.) (Adm 05-0083, dated 01/27/05, available at http://www.brokerpower.com/cgi-bin/adminsearch/admmsg.view.pl?article=2005/2005-0083.ADM)
On January 12-14, 2005, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) held its annual Trade Symposium in Washington, DC.
On January 12-14, 2005, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) held its annual Trade Symposium in Washington, DC.
In an article about the recent shutdown of the ACE Release 4 Truck Manifest pilot in Blaine, WA, The Journal of Commerce reports that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is optimistic that the shutdown is "temporary" (i.e., weeks, not months) and that programmers are already at work fixing the problems. (See ITT's Online Archives or 01/05/05 news, 05010505, for BP summary on the shutdown.)
At the recent Homeland Security Cargo Summit, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offered a draft national cargo security strategy paper as a starting point for a Summit discussion on the development of a strategic plan to support enhanced cargo security across DHS.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site new or modified Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) messages for Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Release 4 - Truck Manifest.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced that the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) for Canadian cheddar cheese as provided for in HTS Chapter 4, Additional U.S. Note (AUSN) 18, which opened on Monday, January 3, 2005, did not oversubscribe at the opening. Therefore, all entries presented at opening have been charged and may be released. (See ITT's Online Archives or 01/04/05 news, 05010445 6, for BP summary on CBP's notice announcing this 2005 TRQ.) (QBT-05-500, dated 01/05/05, available at http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/qbts/qbt2005/05_500.ctt/05_500.doc)
The Wall Street Journal reports that the duties China will levy on certain categories of apparel exports (coats, skirts, knit shirts, nonknit shirts, pajamas and underwear) seem unlikely to satisfy the governments in the U.S. or Europe intent on protecting their industries from an expected flood of Chinese-made garments. The article states that almost all categories will have duties of just 20 fen per item, with several persons quoted as stating that the tax (which Chinese companies can absorb and/or pass on to customers) is just a political or token measure, and will do little to slow exports. (WJS, dated 12/28/04, www.wsj.com )