U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted a notice on its Web site, entitled Notice of Examination for April 2007, which announces that the next Customs Broker License Examination will be held on Monday, April 2, 2007.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued Harmonized System Update No. 0701 to ABI filers stating that CBP has completed its update of the Automated Broker Interface (ABI) records and harmonized records for:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site various materials related to presentations made at the December 11-13, 2006 meeting of the Trade Support Network (TSN).
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has issued a press release announcing that on November 22, 2006, the U.S. and Colombia signed the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA). (International Trade Commission sources have previously stated that the term TPA is essentially interchangeable with the term free trade agreement (FTA).)
The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued a notice requesting comments on its proposed approach concerning the calculation of duty drawback adjustments to export price in antidumping (AD) proceedings.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site a fact sheet on Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Entry Summary, Accounts, and Revenue (ESAR) features that will be coming over the next few years.
On October 13, 2006, President Bush signed into law the conference version of H.R. 4954, entitled the "Security and Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006" (SAFE Port Act), a measure intended to improve maritime and cargo security through enhanced layered defenses, and for other purposes.
On August 24, 2006, President Bush notified Congress of his intent to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia. Negotiations on this FTA, which is entitled U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, were completed on February 27, 2006.
On July 13, 2006, the leadership of the Senate Finance Committee introduced the Customs and Trade Facilitation Reauthorization Act (S. 3658). According to a Senate Finance Committee press release and sources, S. 3658 would authorize, and provide instructions for, adding personnel to all U.S. ports; restoring resources for trade facilitation and enforcement at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP); requiring CBP to plan for the swift resumption of trade in the event of a transportation disruption that could harm the U.S. economy; requiring, within one year, an assessment of nonintrusive container scanning in foreign ports; streamlining and automating claim and collection of customs duty drawback; etc. (Senate Finance Committee press release, dated 07/14/06, available at http://finance.senate.gov/press/Gpress/2005/prg071406a.pdf.)
In February 2006, two members of the trade community prepared a pamphlet entitled "Trade User's Guide for ACE-ESAR Release A2," in order to help current ABI/ACS customs brokers, self-filers, and their automation vendors focus on significant changes they might experience as ACE ESAR (Entry Summary, Accounts, Revenue, also referred to as ACE Release 5) is rolled out.