CBP released a new CTPAT Alert on March 22 with information on what Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism members need to do to comply with new forced labor requirements in the trusted trader program that took effect Jan. 1.
Companies attempting to comply with U.S. laws against importing goods made with forced labor need to choose their words carefully when communicating with Chinese suppliers, said a trade lawyer on a recent webinar. A Chinese law enacted in recent years means using the words Uyghur or Xinjiang, among others, could expose the importer or their Chinese suppliers to legal liability.
CBP posted the following documents ahead of the March 29 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) meeting:
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 head of the interagency Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force said one of the group's highest priorities this year is to add additional companies to the entity list of firms and organizations that either produce goods made with forced labor or are involved in the recruiting or transfer of minority workers out of Xinjiang to other parts of China.
CBP sent out a reminder that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Region Alert will go live in ACE on March 18. “As a reminder, Chinese postal codes must be six-digits in length, otherwise, filers will receive a fatal reject when an entry is filed or when a new Manufacturer’s Identification Number (MID) is created or an existing MID is updated,” it said in a March 16 CSMS message. A post-deployment call is scheduled for March 21 at 3 p.m.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP identified 481 shipments valued at more than $109 million for further examination based on the suspected use of forced labor in February 2023, including goods subject to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and withhold release orders, the agency said in its most recent operational update. That's higher by both number and value than January's total of 282 shipments worth more than $69 million (see 2302100070). CBP also seized 1,590 shipments that contained counterfeit goods valued at more than $182.4 million in February, and completed 22 audits that identified $6.5 million in duties and fees owed to the U.S. government for goods that had been improperly declared, the agency said.
CBP has received a third "exception request" under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act seeking to rebut the presumption that goods with content from China's Xinjiang province were made with forced labor, CBP officials said at a press conference March 14. The agency is still working through all three requests received so far by the agency, the officials said. CBP announced it had received the first two in January (see 2301270078).
Importers need to look beyond the products specifically identified under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to any products with raw materials processed in China, as the country moves more and more production to the Xinjiang province, said Laura Murphy, a professor at Sheffield Hallam University, speaking at CBP's Forced Labor Technical Expo on March 15.