International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for 2018 in case they were missed.
Christmas lights producers outside China appear to have doubled their volume of exports to the U.S. after the Section 301 tariffs more than doubled the tariffs on Chinese lights, according to the Coalition for GSP. The group decided to look at Christmas lights because nearly all of the imports happen from August through October, so the impact of the tariff jump on Chinese lights from 8 percent to 18 percent on Sept. 24 would show up immediately.
There's been some significant growth in imports of products eligible for Generalized System of Preferences benefits in recent months, the Coalition for GSP said in a blog post. The coalition, which advocates for keeping the GSP program in place and is run by a consultancy called Trade Partnership Worldwide, said October set another record for GSP imports. The GSP benefits in October saved U.S. companies $105 million, an increase of $12 million, or 13 percent, over the previous record set in August, the group said.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 5-11:
CBP is delaying the final transition date in ACE for moving customs brokers to national permits by one year until August 2020, it said in an updated deployment schedule posted to its website. The agency is also delaying the scheduled deployment date for certain Generalized System of Preferences fixes by several months, from December 2018 to March 2019, CBP said. The updated schedule no longer includes scheduled deployments for a vessel agent account type, which would have allowed payment of maritime processing fees online, or non-intrusive inspection program related improvements, which were set to modernize the entrance and clearance process in the truck environment using the Multi-Energy Portal imaging system (see 1809240020). Finally, CBP set a concrete deployment date of Feb. 9 for its upcoming ACE Form 5106 input process and unique identifiers for the Centers of Excellence and Expertise. A September version of the schedule had said they’d be deployed in February 2019.
CBP updated its guidance on how importers of goods excluded from Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum can file entries and receive refunds, it said in a Nov. 8 CSMS message. The message includes information related to the change in policy allowing for product exclusions to apply starting on the day a request was filed with the Department of Commerce (see 1809040035), rather than the day the request was posted for public comment. "To request an administrative refund for previous imports of duty-excluded products granted by DOC, importers may file a [Post Summary Correction (PSC)] and provide the product exclusion number in the Importer Additional Declaration Field," CBP said. "If the entry has already liquidated, importers may protest the liquidation."
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Oct. 29 - Nov. 2 in case they were missed.
The International Trade Commission issued Revision 14 to the 2018 Harmonized Tariff Schedule, implementing the removal of Generalized System of Preferences benefits for a lengthy list of products from certain countries as a result of the 2017-18 GSP review (see 1810300031). Changes include the replacement of special program indicator “A” with “A*” -- indicating GSP eligibility only when imported from certain countries -- for subheadings that are now GSP-ineligible when imported from countries that exceeded annual import limits. These ineligible country-product pairs are added to the burgeoning General Note 4(d) of the tariff schedule, which is now over twice as long as it was in previous years’ tariff schedules.
CBP created Harmonized System Update (HSU) 1819 on Oct. 31, containing 1,200 Automated Broker Interface records and 245 harmonized tariff records, it said in a CSMS message. The update also includes changes required by an Oct. 30 Presidential Proclamation that removed many items from Generalized System of Preferences eligibility (see 1810300031), CBP said.
CBP has competed automatic processing of duty refunds for more than 400,000 entry lines flagged for Generalized System of Preferences benefits that were entered during the lapse in the program in early 2018, it said in CSMS message. The agency will now turn to an additional 22,000 lines that were also submitted with special program indicator (SPI) “A” at entry summary, indicating a GSP claim, but that nonetheless require manual processing. “CBP anticipates processing by the [Centers of Excellence and Expertise] to take several months,” it said.