The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Oct. 5 cleared legislation to require greater publicizing of and technical assistance for foreign use of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), after the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Sept. 28 passed companion legislation. The bills, introduced by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., would require the executive branch to maintain a public website to disseminate AGOA information, including information and technical assistance already provided at U.S. Agency for International Development regional trade hubs. The bills also say the president should provide capacity building training to promote diversification of African products and value-added processing, as well as capacity building and technical assistance funding to help African companies and institutions comply with U.S. counterterrorism policies and initiatives.
Generalized System of Preferences renewal has bipartisan support in the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees, and lawmakers are working to enact legislation before January to extend the program, spokeswomen from the committees said in Oct. 11 emails. "Bipartisan members of the committee are working together on this important issue and committed to renewing this before the end of the year,” the Ways and Means spokeswoman said. A Finance spokeswoman said it’s her committee’s “goal” to reauthorize the program by the end of Dec. 31, when benefits are set to expire.
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CBP issued filing instructions for goods eligible for the Generalized System of Preferences in the event the GSP program expires at the end of the year. As in previous GSP lapses (see 13071514), filers would continue to use the GSP special program indicator to flag their entries, but would have to pay duties at the normal, non-preferential rate for any imports with a time of entry during the lapse. GSP is currently set to expire Dec. 31 if the program isn’t extended by Congress, though lobbyists say GSP renewal legislation could be passed alongside the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill by the end of the year (see 1709120021).
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Senate Finance Committee Democrats and House Ways and Means Republicans have floated the idea of advancing packaged legislation including Generalized System of Preferences renewal alongside a miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB) or African Growth and Opportunity Act-related bill before the end of 2017, according to a trade lobbyist close to the committees. Committee staffers haven’t stated “emphatically that they would” move forward with such an action, but “it makes sense,” the lobbyist said. Trade industry executives in June said groups were eyeing the possibility of an MTB set to be considered as early as November to serve as a potential vehicle for GSP renewal (see 1706200050).
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Articles imported within sets may be eligible for duty-free treatment under the Generalized System of Preferences, even if other components of the set are not, the Court of International Trade said in a decision issued Aug. 23. In a test case on whether sets of Thai pots and Chinese lids imported by Meyer Corp. qualify for GSP, CIT held that the pots are GSP-eligible, and that the lids are not, despite the entire sets being classified in a single tariff provision for kitchen articles of stainless steel.
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The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is moving forward with its review of the Generalized System of Preferences and is ready to consider petitions to modify both the list of GSP-eligible products and the beneficiary status of GSP countries, it said. USTR is also extending to a second day a previously announced hearing of the interagency Trade Policy Staff Committee's (TPSC's) GSP Subcommittee on Bolivian compliance with GSP eligibility criteria related to child labor, to examine several other country practice petitions accepted in prior years (see 1707070021). The agency outlined the following deadlines in its GSP review (submissions are due at midnight on each deadline):