The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, in a conference session preparing its members for a day lobbying on Capitol Hill, said that the NCBFAA is not arguing for or against a de minimis restriction proposal from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The proposal would require all goods entering in de minimis to be classified with a 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule code and would bar apparel, footwear and other "import-sensitive" goods from eligibility.
Forced Labor
CBP is the primary U.S. agency tasked with combating forced labor in international trade. It is the only agency with legal authority to take enforcement action and prevent entry into domestic commerce of goods produced with forced labor. CBP combats forced labor by issuing Withhold Release Orders (WROs) and Findings, and enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), and Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Goods subject to WROs and Findings, UFLPA, and CAATSA status cannot be entered at any ports of the U.S.
During this week's Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) quarterly meeting on Sept. 18, the group's subcommittees offered updates on their activities between June, when COAC last met (see 2406270054), and September.
A subgroup of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee Secure Trade Lanes Subcommittee laid out eight recommendations for how to beef up communications among CBP's Centers of Excellence and Expertise, brokers and other trade entities amid growing pressures at CBP to be vigilant over forced labor, antidumping and other threats.
CBP posted the following documents for the Sept. 18 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) meeting:
As the House Ways and Means Committee discusses moving toward a proposal closer to the Senate Finance Committee chairman's bill to restrict de minimis, the top Republican on the Finance Committee is not publicly opposing the core ideas of that bill -- removing apparel and footwear from eligibility from all countries, and not allowing goods subject to Section 301 tariffs to enter duty-free.
In August, CBP seized 1,997 shipments that contained counterfeit goods valued at more than $993 million, the agency said Sept. 16 in a monthly update.
Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Trade Compliance partners in good standing may have access to a new benefit, CBP says: the use of a foreign-trade zone to store goods subject to possible forced labor enforcement action.
The Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) has 72 additions to its list of goods that could potentially be produced by forced labor or child labor, including a record 37 new goods that have not previously been identified as involving labor exploitation, ILAB said Sept. 5 in its latest edition of the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.
The top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, joined by a Republican and two other Democrats, is asking CBP to provide decision memoranda, emails, situation summaries, discussion and evaluation documents and briefing documents on how the agency is identifying seafood imports that were harvested by illegal fishing or processed with forced labor, including how ACE is collecting data.
The Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) is seeking comments on its Comply Chain: Business Tools for Labor Compliance in Global Supply Chains, as well as three reports on child labor and forced labor in certain foreign countries, through Dec. 16, it said in a Federal Register notice.