Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., issued a release Oct. 25 asking his colleagues to change the law so that Kazakhstan can receive permanent normal trade relations, as Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and other former Soviet states do. Kazakhstan goods are subject to Column 1 tariffs, but that status must be renewed annually.
The Commerce Department on Oct. 25 released its quarterly update to its annual list of foreign-government subsidies on imported articles of cheese subject to an in-quota rate of duty, for the period Jan. 1 - March 31, 2024. The agency again found that only Canada is providing subsidies, in the form of export assistance.
SAN DIEGO -- Customs brokers shouldn’t be dismissive or fearful of artificial intelligence tools because those tools' ability to analyze massive amounts of trade data enables brokers to focus on other aspects of the business, speakers on a panel said at the Pacific Coast Council’s Western Cargo Conference (WESCCON) last week.
If a reelected President Donald Trump uses the existing Section 301 tariffs program to hike tariffs on all Chinese goods by at least 60%, that's likely to survive a court challenge, said two law professors who spoke during a Washington International Trade Association webinar on the executive branch's ability to make deals and impose trade restrictions without congressional say-so.
The Court of International Trade in a decision made public Oct. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's rejection of eight Section 232 steel tariff exclusion requests from importer Seneca Foods Corp. on its tin mill product entries. Judge Gary Katzmann said the rejections were backed by substantial evidence and in line with agency practice.
Rope-coiled decorative baskets imported by Kohl's are generally classified as made-up textile articles, rather than as ropes, and an especially large version of one of the baskets is big enough to be classified as furniture, CBP said in a Sept. 27 customs ruling.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has updated the Harmonized Tariff Schedule codes subject to Certification of Admissibility requirements from Mexico to align the codes with the International Trade Commission's 2024 revision to the tariff schedule, according to an Oct. 23 cargo systems message.
Domestic steel producer Zekelman Industries filed a lawsuit on Oct. 21 in a Washington, D.C., federal court alleging that the Mexican government breached its 2019 agreement with the U.S. to slow imports of Mexican steel products. The company argued that Mexico's breach of the deal "has devastated the U.S. steel industry," forcing the company to close two plants due to the oversupply of cheap steel (Zekelman Industries v. United States, D.D.C. # 24-02992).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 23 ruled that steel tubing with insulating material imported by Shamrock Building Materials is classifiable as steel tubes of heading 7306, rather than insulated conduit of heading 8547, subjecting the steel tubing to 25% Section 232 tariffs.
The Aluminum Association is pleased by the hike in Section 301 tariffs on aluminum products -- even though it applies to more products than it wishes were covered -- and says Mexico's reporting is helping with trade remedies covering Chinese, Russian and Belarussian steel.