The chaotic situation that importers and customs brokers have been facing as tariff policy swings wildly from one extreme to the next is partially due to the fact that CBP is unable to influence policy in the Trump administration, Pete Mento, director of customs and international trade at DSV, said on May 8. Decisions about tariffs are made without expert insight into how their actual implementation will affect the broader trade community, he said.
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.
Seko Logistics announced Vanessa Rambo will join the company as chief compliance officer, the company said in a news release May 5. Rambo, a licensed customs broker, was previously with Lamb Weston, Nestle, Meggitt and Bostik. The company also said Brendan Belz is joining as chief transformation officer, and Alain Chimene is joining as regional president for the Asia-Pacific.
As CBP has made it clear that it will ramp up efforts to ensure companies and importers are complying with import regulations and all the assorted tariff modifications, the roles of customs brokers and import compliance experts have been elevated within company structures, several trade experts said this week in webinars.
CBP created Harmonized System Update 2517 on April 29, containing 254 Automated Broker Interface records and 58 Harmonized Tariff Schedule records. HSU 2517 includes the Section 232 auto parts updates: HTS 9903.94.05 and 9903.94.06, as well as partner government agency (PGA) updates. Additional information on the Section 232 Auto Parts Updates can be found here.
The nominee to lead CBP, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, told the Senate Finance Committee that during high school in Nogales, Arizona, a lot of his friends' parents were customs brokers, so he saw the importance of free-flowing goods across borders.
Customs brokers will be able to file Type 11 informal entries for articles under $2,500, even if they are categorized in Chapter 99 and are subject to tariffs, from all countries, according to an April 28 cargo systems message from CBP.
With so much uncertainty occurring with U.S. import regulations, companies should develop multiple strategies that address potentially different tariff outcomes, with some strategies being deployed in the short-term and others being deployed further down the road as the geopolitical situation becomes more clear, according to trade experts with professional services firm KPMG.
The 12 states that recently launched a lawsuit against all tariff action taken by President Donald Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act will begin working on a preliminary injunction motion against the tariffs "in the near future," Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield told us. Rayfield was confident in the prospect of being able to show that Oregon and its many public institutions will suffer "irreparable harm" without the injunction and that a judge will be willing to question the validity of Trump's declaration that bilateral trade deficits amount to an "unusual and extraordinary" threat.
CBP published more details of how it will collect duties or fees on imported packages worth less than $800 with Chinese goods in the public inspection pages of the Federal Register on April 24.