According to the Washington File, the USTR has released its 2006 report of unfair trade barriers in foreign countries, called the National Trade Estimate on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE), where China is listed as having the most barriers, followed by the European Union, Japan, and South Korea. The article notes that most of the problems listed in the 2006 report are the same ones that have appeared in earlier reports. (Washington File (dated 03/31/06), available at http://usinfo.state.gov/eap/Archive/2006/Apr/02-251571.html )
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a short administrative message stating that it is reminding all brokers that establishing and maintaining brokerage operations outside of the Customs Territory of the U.S. is inconsistent with the broker's obligation to exercise responsible supervision and control while conducting customs business.
CBP has issued its weekly tariff rate quota (TRQ) commodity report as of March 27, 2006. This report includes TRQs on various products such as beef, tuna, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa powder, tobacco, certain JFTA, MFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, UAFTA and UCFTA TRQs, etc. This report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, CBTPA, MFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA (CFTA) tariff preference levels (TPLs) for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics, etc. (CBP's weekly quota commodity report, dated 03/27/06, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a general notice announcing that truck carriers who are not Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Truck Carrier Accounts can now use third parties to transmit truck manifest information, including advance cargo information, electronically in the ACE Truck Manifest system, via electronic data interchange (EDI) messaging.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site under "What's New" an Attachment A entitled "Factories Comprising Qualifying Industrial Zones in Egypt Designated by U.S. Federal Register Notice of December 29, 2004." This list was Attachment A to a February 10, 2005 CBP memo, and names the industrial cities and the companies in each of the three QIZs. The list also contains a few "individual factories" for which the list states information is to be provided. (See ITT's Online Archives or 06/03/05 news, 05060315 for BP summary encompassing the February 10, 2005 CBP Memo.)Attachment A List available at http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/import/international_agreements/free_trade/free_trade_area/israel_attachment.ctt/israel_attachment.doc
The International Trade Administration (ITA) frequently issues notices on antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty orders which Broker Power considers to be "minor" in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued and neither announce nor cause any changes to an order's duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period. The ITA also issues other notices which Broker Power considers to be "minor."
The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) has sent a letter to the Secretary of Commerce encouraging him to continue the Commerce Department's long-standing policy of safeguarding competition-sensitive export information as it establishes mandatory filing of data through the Automated Export System (AES). According to an NCBFAA press release, concern arose when U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refused to approve regulations clarifying filers' responsibilities under the law and implementing the statutory requirement for mandatory filing through AES. Central to the controversy is a CBP demand for concessions on AES "Option 4" and on the availability of Census data to foreign governments. (NCBFAA press release, dated March 2006) available via email by emailing documents@brokerpower.com.)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site various materials related to presentations made at the February 26 - March 1, 2006 meeting of the Trade Support Network (TSN).
Broker Power is able to provide quota prices twice a month for a limited number of textile and apparel categories from the People's Republic of China (China) that are subject to "agreed quotas" and publicly traded. (These publicly traded quota prices have been provided by a Hong Kong quota broker.)