International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is pressing companies based in China to provide more detailed disclosures on Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act compliance and the role of the Chinese government in their operations, according to a sample letter recently posted to the agency’s website.
Importers of apparel from Africa and exporters of auto parts, apparel, food and metal from South Africa are making the case to renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act ahead of schedule, renew it for at least 10 years, if not 20, and, some are arguing directly, restore Ethiopia's eligibility.
Canada launched investigations of Nike Canada and Dynasty Gold this week after receiving complaints that both companies’ supply chains have ties to forced labor in China. A Canadian agency said it’s probing allegations that Nike has “supply relationships” with Chinese companies that use Uyghur forced labor and that Dynasty Gold, a mining company, benefited from Uyghur forced labor at a Chinese mine in which it had a majority stake.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Homeland Security Undersecretary Robert Silvers, who chairs the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force that maintains UFLPA's entity list, told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China that FLETF has an "active pipeline of referrals we are examining, and we anticipate more additions in coming months."
The Treasury Department published its spring 2023 regulatory agenda for CBP. There are no mentions of any new trade-related rulemakings, though the agency did move two rules off its agenda to a lower-priority list of planned long-term actions. One of the rules would finalize in the customs regulations the increase of the de minimis level from $200 to $800 under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. The other would amend CBP's regulations on disclosure of information regarding merchandise bearing suspected counterfeit trademarks by creating "a procedure for the disclosure of information otherwise protected by the Trade Secrets Act to a trademark owner when merchandise bearing suspected counterfeit trademarks has been voluntarily abandoned."
One of the leaders in the move to pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act recently introduced a new bill that would require the administration to enforce the ban on goods made with child labor, particularly cobalt and lithium.
The lack of disclosure in Enforce and Protect Act evasion proceedings and the deferential standard of review "stack the deck" in favor of the alleger, giving importers "a lot to complain about in the EAPA process," customs lawyer Larry Friedman of Barnes/Richardson said in a July 6 blog post. Even importers who believe they have conducted reasonable due diligence may have serious unexpected liabilities that come out during the investigation, he said.
House lawmakers proposed several trade-related amendments as part of the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, including a Democrat-backed measure that could require publicly traded companies to annually disclose whether their imports originate in or are sourced in part from China’s Xinjiang region or from factories “implicated in forced labor schemes.”