With just 14 days in session scheduled for the House of Representatives before the end of the year, Ways and Means Committee members are not expressing optimism that a renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program will be one of the items that gets a vote this Congress.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, in its annual report to Congress, said that ending de minimis for all e-commerce is one of its top 10 recommendations, and said that if Congress passes such a law, it should provide CBP adequate resources to implement and enforce the change.
Outgoing Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., last week formally introduced a bill restricting de minimis eligibility for textiles and apparel from anywhere in the world, as well as goods subject to Section 301 tariffs (see 2408020031). The bipartisan bill goes beyond the version that passed the House Ways and Means Committee, in that it adds apparel to the list of restricted items, and it would levy a $2 fee on de minimis packages, to help CBP fund its inspections of the low-value packages. The Biden administration is planning to issue a proposed rule before Jan. 20 that would remove Section 301 goods from de minimis, but it can't add the fee through rulemaking.
In addition to tariff hikes expected in 2025, trade experts are also thinking about the 2026 review of USMCA, and the investment and supply chain planning uncertainty that is likely to follow.
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register Nov. 15 on the following AD/CV duty proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
NEW YORK -- The Consumer Product Safety Commission's intent to require information from certificates of compliance to be filed in ACE next year is alarming brokers, according to Erin Williamson, vice president of customs brokerage at GEODIS USA.
Trade attorneys continue to wait and wonder what kind of tariff changes will come next year, with one observer using a tariff slide that said "Tariff Armageddon."
House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., proposes increasing tariffs on nearly all Chinese goods to at least 35% and raising tariffs on "strategic goods" to 100%, with exceptions only for goods that are currently sourced only from China.
CBP created Harmonized System Update 2415 on Nov. 13, containing 16,156 Automated Broker Interface (ABI) records and 5,000 Harmonized Tariff Schedule records. The update details 2024 cotton fee updates (see 2409130022). The HSU also reflects flagging updates to several HTS records, where the AM7 flag is being removed from 1,700 records involving organic products (see 2410170035). This removal process began Oct. 18, and another update message will indicate when the process is complete.
NEW YORK -- The executive director of CBP's Office of Trade Relations told U.S. Fashion Industry Association conference attendees this week that CBP thought crossing the 1 billion de minimis packages threshold was big, but then volume increased about 40% in the 2024 fiscal year. Felicia Pullam said CBP cannot handle that kind of massive increase and is confident it's stopping dangerous contact lenses, vapes, toys with lead paint, counterfeit airbags, medicines and other illicit goods.