CBP’s recently announced global business identifier pilot program (see 2212010046) is a “big first step” toward “greater clarity and greater accountability for the accuracy of data,” and its results could prove a boon to enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act for both CBP and importers, trade lawyer John Foote said Dec. 2 on his blog Forced Labor & Trade. UFLPA enforcement is dependent on sub-tier manufacturers and raw material producers, and the GBI pilot promises delve deeper in the supply chain than the problematic manufacturer ID currently used on entry documentation by obtaining the unique identities of the manufacturer, shipper and seller, as well as optionally the exporter, distributor and packager, Foote said. “[T]he GBI pilot is certainly a big first step in the direction of greater clarity and greater accountability for the accuracy of data. It will be interesting to see whether it is a success,” he said.
CBP will in 2023 begin testing two projects under the DHS Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP) “that will connect CBP with trade users,” the agency said in a document released ahead of an upcoming meeting of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee. The projects are being used to “verify some ACE 2.0 concepts” to inform CBP’s development of ACE 2.0, “which could begin as early as 2025,” CBP said.
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The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) will not move forward with a proposal under the 21st Century Customs Framework (21CCF) to make ocean vessel manifest data automatically confidential, according to a report from the 21CCF task force released by the COAC Nov. 28. The provision is one of several listed by the task force in the report that the COAC will no longer advance after recent discussions with CBP.
Companies based in China’s Xinjiang province recently signed deals with companies located elsewhere in China to export Xinjiang-origin food products that are made with forced labor, said Kharon, a risk data and risk management software company, in an alert Nov. 21. Chinese news reports coming out of an expo held in Xinjiang’s capital in September indicate Xinjiang Tianyun Organic Agriculture Co., Ltd., a fish farming and processing business that has participated in so-called “poverty alleviation programs,” an indicator of forced labor, signed an agreement with Dalian Rich Enterprise Group “intended to substantially increase international distribution of Xinjiang salmon,” Kharon said.
CBP will block imports from Dominican sugar giant Central Romana under a new withhold release order issued by the agency on Nov. 23, it said in a news release the same day. Beginning on Nov. 23, CBP will “detain raw sugar and sugar-based products produced in the Dominican Republic” by Central Romana, after finding “information that reasonably indicates the use of forced labor in its operation,” CBP said.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation says the Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports have been fruitless, and antidumping and countervailing duty laws also are inadequate to counter the wide variety of abuses from China -- industrial espionage, forced technology transfer, discrimination against foreign sales in China, as well as enormous subsidies. "It is time for the U.S. government, ideally working with allies, to craft and implement a new set of trade defense instruments," ITIF Founder Robert Atkinson wrote in a white paper released Nov. 21.
CBP is adding three new benefits related to forced labor in its Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Trade Compliance program, CTPAT Director Manual Garza said in a message to the trade community posted to the CBP website Nov. 18. Effective immediately, CBP will provide “to the greatest extent possible and practical,” front-of-line admissibility review, the ability to hold instead of redeliver goods suspected of forced labor and the ability to move shipments detained under a withhold release order to a bonded facility.
In a series of meetings on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai defended the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as talked about how implementation of it could be shaped. She pitched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework as a way to address "current challenges" and realize new economic opportunities. And Tai talked about trade with China, both directly with her Chinese counterpart, and with Japan, where, the readout of her meeting with the Japanese trade minister said, Japan is prioritizing "tackling shared challenges posed by non-market economic policies and practices," which is another way of saying responding to Chinese overcapacity and subsidies.
CBP's Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) will next meet Dec. 7 in College Park, Maryland, CBP said in a notice. Comments are due in writing by Dec. 2.