Generally, an entry is liquidated after 314 days, but Geodis customs brokers told an audience of fashion industry professionals that there have been cases in which liquidation came early, and there was not enough time left to do a protest in order to get a refund after an exclusion was granted. The brokers spoke during a webinar hosted by the U.S. Fashion Industry Association.
Customs duty
A customs duty is a tariff or tax which a country imposes on goods when they are transported across international borders. Customs Duties are used to protect countries' economies, residents, jobs, and environments, by limiting the flow of imported merchandise, especially restricted and prohibited goods, into the country. The Customs duty rate is a percentage determined by the value of the article purchased in the foreign country and not based on quality, size, or weight. U.S. customs duties are listed in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States.
CBP recently issued refunds to an importer of recordkeeping penalties collected by way of a federal law that allows federal and state agencies to withhold tax refunds and other payments to settle debts owed to the government. The checks are part of a settlement to resolve a lawsuit filed by A&K Railroad Materials challenging CBP’s use of offset provisions of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 to collect the penalties. A&K argued the law can’t be used to collect customs debts.
Any future Section 301 exclusion renewals will only last until the end of the year, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told the House Ways and Means Committee as he testified June 17 about the administration's trade agenda, adding that “they will decide what happens after that.”
CBP added on June 4 the ability in ACE for importers to file entries with recently excluded goods in the third tranche of Section 301 tariffs, it said in a CSMS message. The official Office of the U.S. Trade Representative notice for the exclusions was published May 28 (see 2005220020). The exclusions are in subheading 9903.88.48. The exclusions are available for any product that meets the description in the Annex to USTR’s notice, regardless of whether the importer filed an exclusion request. The product exclusions apply retroactively to Sept. 24, 2018, the date the tariffs on the third list took effect, and remain in effect until Aug. 7, 2020. The CSMS message also includes a summary of Section 301 duties that shows information on each tranche of tariffs and granted product exclusions.
The negotiations toward a U.S.-United Kingdom trade agreement, which are happening online, are starting with the commonalities, but Britain's North American trade commissioner and consul general in New York said he thinks they will be able to find a way forward even on the sensitive issues in agriculture.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on June 10. The following headquarters rulings were modified recently, according to CBP:
Rep. Suzan DelBene, a House Ways and Means Committee member who also leads on trade in the New Democrats, said she's worried that the participation of “so many countries” at the World Trade Organization in e-commerce talks -- including China -- will mean that the result will not be a high-standard agreement.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on June 4. The following headquarters rulings were modified recently, according to CBP:
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The Court of International Trade on June 2 denied a bid by two nail importers for a preliminary injunction barring the government from collecting Section 232 tariffs on their steel “derivatives” imports. J. Conrad and Metropolitan Staple did not show they would be irreparably harmed if tariff collections proceed, so they didn’t meet at least one of four factors required for the court to issue a preliminary injunction, CIT said.