A group of 12 members of the House Ways and Means Committee has urged the Biden administration to investigate allegations that at least six Chinese fishing companies that supply U.S. markets employ Uyghur forced labor.
Tin-plated brass strips imported by Cooper Plating and then made into plumbing parts before being exported are eligible for temporary importation under bond under subheading 9813.00.05, CBP said in a recent ruling. However, while they undergo the required processing to qualify for TIB treatment, they are subject to the USMCA "lesser of duty rule" for similar reasons, CBP said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security sent a final rule for interagency review that could make changes to the exclusion process for Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. BIS sent the rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Feb. 15, about six months after it published proposed changes aimed at improving the accuracy and efficiency of exclusion requests and objections (see 2308250035).
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Importer Trijicon's tritium-powered gun sights are "lamps" and not "apparatus," slotting them under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9405, the Court of International Trade ruled on Feb. 16. Judge Mark Barnett said the gun sights do not meet definition of "apparatus" put forward by either Trijicon or the government, who respectively defined the term as a set of materials or equipment and a complex device. The court instead found that the products "are readily classified as lamps," which are defined as "any of various devices for producing light."
Georgia woman Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois filed suit at the Court of International Trade Feb. 16 to contest six questions on the October 2021 customs broker license exam. In her complaint, Stoute-Francois said that after appealing the test results to the Treasury Department, she was left just short of the 75% grade needed to pass the test, failing at 73.75% (Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois v. U.S., CIT # 24-00046).
CBP granted an importer's protest that an automatic aerosol dispenser is classified as an appliance part, rather than as an appliance itself, in a recently released ruling.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said it's extending the deadline for an international corporate income tax deal, and is extending its pause on retaliatory tariffs on countries that have passed or were considering passing digital services taxes against American firms.
CBP created Harmonized System Update (HSU) 2403 Feb. 13, containing 590 ABI records and 120 Harmonized Tariff Schedule records. The update includes several partner government agency Harmonized Tariff Schedule flag updates, as well as adjustments required by the verification of the 2024 HTS.
The top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee said that getting Chinese shipments banned from the de minimis program is how he'd like to close out his congressional career. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., is retiring at the end of 2024. "I think we will see this moving forward, if only for the animus toward China" in Congress, he said.