CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
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.
Kharon has signed a contract with the DHS office that oversees the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List to provide it with access to Kharon’s ClearView risk analytics platform, Kharon said in a news release Aug. 21. Kharon said the deal will provide access to the platform for the DHS analysts who support the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force. Kharon signed a similar deal with CBP in 2023 (see 2310190049).
Shawn Harwood, a former DHS official who worked on the implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, has joined Squire Patton as an international trade investigations specialist, he announced this week on LinkedIn. Harwood left DHS in 2023 and most recently worked as an adviser on forced labor remediation and supply chain due diligence with consulting firm LRQA.
Most EU member states missed a July deadline to implement the EU’s new corporate sustainability reporting rules into national law, causing uncertainty for businesses that want to ready their compliance procedures before the rules take effect beginning next year, a major European law firm said.
Republican attorneys general from 21 states are asking Temu how it certifies that products sold on its website "are not made with slave labor," among other questions about Americans' consumer data.
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 nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that applying Section 301 tariffs to the contents of packages that previously benefited from de minimis, as proposed in the House (see 2407080049), would increase revenue from tariffs by about $23.5 billion in the 2024-2034 period, but would only require reprogramming of ACE and more money for data storage and ACE maintenance, not new CBP officers. The CBO estimated that improving ACE would cost $3 million, and that CBP would need $2 million annually to maintain the system.
Last week, the Court of International Trade said anti-forced labor advocacy group International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) didn't have standing to challenge CBP's inaction in responding to a petition to ban cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire, alleging that it's harvested by child labor (see 2408080049). Terrence Collingsworth, counsel for IRAdvocates, told us he intends to appeal the decision but, should that fail, he is ready to bring alternative plaintiffs before the court who may more clearly establish standing.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., urged the Commerce Department this week to investigate whether the fast-growing online shopping platform Temu, which is owned by Chinese company PDD Holdings, is violating U.S. trade laws.
Effective immediately, CBP will no longer detain shipments of seafood products harvested by Yu Long No. 2, a Taiwan-flagged fishing vessel.