Seven House Democrats have asked the Biden administration why three Chinese solar panel manufacturers were not put on the entity list under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, as they say consulting group Horizon Advisory has reported that the three either have ties to forced labor or have signs of using forced labor.
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The National Marine Fisheries Service is proposing to amend its regulations to implement recently passed laws against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The proposed rule would revise the regulatory definition of IUU fishing, revise regulatory penalty provisions, amend procedures for identifying and certifying nations that have vessels engaged in IUU fishing, reduce the period of validity for certain vessel permits and expand the information required to be submitted by foreign fishing vessels requesting entry into U.S. ports.
Canada, which had exported more than $133 million worth of solar panels in 2017 before its exports were hit with the global safeguard, will no longer be subject to the 14.75% tariff on panels. The change was announced July 7, while U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai was visiting Canada for the USMCA Free Trade Commission; the memorandum of understanding marking the change will be signed July 8. Tai said the agreement "contains a mechanism to ensure that solar product imports from Canada do not undermine the existing U.S. safeguard measure on imports of solar products," and also commits Canada to prohibiting the import of solar module components made in whole or in part with forced or compulsory labor.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is soliciting comments on a strategy to combat forced labor, at Regulations.gov, docket number USTR-2022-0006. Although CBP is the primary agency responsible for preventing goods made with forced labor from reaching customers in the U.S., USTR is conducting an interagency review of existing trade policies and tools to combat forced labor, "to determine areas that may need strengthening and gaps that may need to be filled." Comments are due by Aug. 5.
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.
CBP should not require “comprehensive supply chain mapping” as part of its requirements for the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism forced labor component, and should update the requirements so that mapping is done via a risk-based approach, said Kerry Novak, who sits on the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee’s Secure Trade Lanes Subcommittee, in recommendations she read at the COAC’s June 29 meeting.
Solar panel exports were already facing heightened CBP scrutiny under a withhold release order affecting a major supplier of polysilicon, a material used to make ingots that are then made into cells, which are then made into panels. But the early results of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act enforcement suggest that the Biden administration is willing to strictly enforce UFLPA "despite impacts on [solar panel] supply and pricing," said Tim Brightbill, a trade lawyer at Wiley.
The Treasury Department published its fall 2022 regulatory agenda for CBP. The only new mention of any regulations is a return to the agenda for a final rule that would "create 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." CBP issued the underlying proposal in 2019 (see 1908260040), and the final rule had been on Treasury's regulatory agenda for 2020 and spring of 2021 before moving to the long-term actions category in the most recent agenda.
A lawyer who has represented clients whose goods were detained over suspicion of forced labor says the new document laying out the strategy on enforcing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is not earth-shattering.