Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., speaking at the NATO Public Forum in the Netherlands, said she believes Congress is ready to approve a bill that would impose a wide range of sanctions on Russia and its supporters if Moscow refuses to reach a peace deal with Ukraine, including a 500% tariff on imported goods from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other products (see 2504020003).
The Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration will begin accepting requests July 1 to include additional auto parts under 25% Section 232 tariffs on imports, it said in a news release June 24. The 14-day submission window will be one of four per year when Commerce accepts inclusion requests, in January, April, July and October, it said.
At an appearance at the Washington International Trade Association, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., criticized the Trump administration for instituting an "on-again, off-again tariff structure, that, in some instances, are higher than even the Smoot-Hawley levels."
Hundreds of Section 232 inclusion requests for metal derivatives cover more than $310 billion in annual imports, and imposing 50% tariffs on part of the value of "such a wide array of items, particularly where many products do not meaningfully contain steel or aluminum, risks disrupting sectors far removed from the primary industries targeted by the original Section 232 actions," argued trade groups asking Commerce to slow down before making decisions.
Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., recently introduced a bill that would use tariff revenues on agricultural products -- Chapters 1 through 24 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule -- to make farmers whole for lost export revenue and higher costs on their own business purchases.
The House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee chairman, 44 other House Republicans and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., urged the U.S. trade representative, agriculture secretary, commerce secretary and treasury secretary to get trade partners to end digital services taxes, improve import quotas and lower tariffs in these quick negotiations, all issues that they said "we cannot delay addressing."
The House Aerospace Caucus co-chair, and 23 other Republicans, are asking the administration to preserve zero tariffs for aerospace goods that have been in place since 1979 under the Civil Aircraft Agreement, and to push for more countries to pledge to allow imports of commercial aircraft and parts duty-free. (The U.S. is one of 58 countries that follow the agreement, though since the reciprocal tariffs were imposed, most aerospace imports outside Canada, Mexico and the U.K. are facing tariffs.)
CBP said it will be deploying on June 28 an enhancement in the ACE production environment that will increase the number of Harmonized Tariff Schedule numbers allowed per entry summary line to 32, up from eight HTS numbers presently. The number had been expected to increase to 16, according to a CBP announcement earlier this month (see 2506130068).
CBP has updated its June 20 guidance on Section 232 additional steel derivative products (see 2506200066) to list the correct number for preexisting Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the U.S. subheading 9903.81.98, according to a June 24 cargo systems message. The change corrects the Chapter 99 HTS number for some steel or iron derivative imports coming from the U.K. No changes were made to the attachment that was part of the CSMS message, according to CBP.
An importer can't use the transaction value of the first sale for appraisement purposes, CBP recently determined in a May 6 ruling, finding that the middleman paid the manufacturer late yet didn't pay any interest as required by the contract, indicating that the transaction wasn't at arm's length.