Trade professionals and a trade scholar, talking on a panel that compared the Trump and Biden administrations' trade policies, said that not as much has changed on trade as might have been expected. Christine McDaniel, an economist at George Mason University, said she doesn't expect any of the Section 301 tariffs or the steel and aluminum tariffs to be lifted before the end of 2021. "I haven’t seen any indication they’re going to pull back on the tariffs," she said during a seminar at the Virginia Small Business Development Center on Sept. 21. "I’ve heard people say that the Trump trade policy is just being continued by the Biden administration, minus the rhetoric. You can make the argument for that."
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Sept. 13-19:
Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the co-chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, said that in order to transition as soon as possible to renewable energy without doing so "on the backs of slave labor," the House of Representatives "must pass and the president must sign into law the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act." The Senate passed a version of this bill in July; a House version was included in the EAGLE Act, which passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Merkley's co-chair, Rep Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, said he felt the Senate approach was not strong enough (see 2107290018). Merkley and McGovern are both Democrats.
CBP recently updated its frequently asked questions about the withhold release order aimed at silica-based products from China that made a first mention of de minimis considerations (see 2108030026). CBP's revised response to a question about whether finished products containing a small percentage of silica-based products subject to the WRO now says the agency “recognizes there may be some very fact-specific instances, where the question of the contribution of prohibited labor to the whole of a product (from a quantitative and a qualitative perspective) is something that a court might consider with respect to the statutory intent of Section 1307 of Title 19, United States Code.” The updated version also removes any mention of the phrase “de minimis” and an example of a de minimis contribution.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Sept. 7-10 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The CBP modification of its forced labor finding on Top Glove imports from Malaysia followed several actions by the company to remedy forced labor indicators, the agency said Sept. 10. “CBP modified a Finding after thoroughly reviewing evidence that Top Glove has addressed all indicators of forced labor identified at its Malaysian facilities,” CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller said. “Top Glove’s actions in response to the Withhold Release Order, which include issuing more than $30 million in remediation payments to workers and improving labor and living conditions at the company’s facilities, suggest that CBP’s enforcement efforts provide a strong economic incentive for entities to eliminate forced labor from their supply chains.”
CBP is ending a forced labor finding on disposable gloves made by Top Glove in Malaysia, after finding the company submitted enough evidence that its disposable gloves are no longer being made with forced labor, CBP said in a notice. Effective on the notice’s date of publication, scheduled for Sept. 10, disposable gloves made by Top Glove in Malaysia will no longer be subject to detention, seizure and forfeiture under the forced labor finding.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Aug. 30 - Sept. 3 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
CBP recently posted question and answers from its Virtual Trade Week conference. The documents include information on forced labor (see 2107210040), e-commerce (see 2107210045), the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program (see 2107220054), the Global Business Identifier Initiative (see 2107230034), export modernization and the 21st Century Customs Framework (see 2107200067).
CBP detained a total of 967 shipments between Oct. 1, 2020, and Aug. 6, 2021, due to the possible use of forced labor on the goods, the agency said in recently updated trade statistics. That marks an increase of 331 stopped shipments from the previous release of statistics, when CBP said it had detained 636 shipments between Oct. 1, 2020, and June 15, 2021 (see 2106280019). The total value of the detained shipments for this fiscal year so far is about $368 million, it said.