The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has issued a notice and press release announcing the country-by-country allocations of the in-quota quantity of the tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for imported raw cane sugar, refined sugar, and sugar-containing products for fiscal year (FY) 2005 (which runs from October 1, 2004 and ends September 30, 2005). The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has also issued a press release on these allocations.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued two notices regarding the changes made by the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Acceleration Act of 2004 (Public Law (P.L.) 108-274) for textiles and apparel.
In the July 21, 2004 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (CBP Bulletin) (Vol. 38, No. 30), CBP issued notices: (a) proposing to modify a classification ruling on painted glass sinks, and (b) proposing to revoke a classification ruling on aero-derivative gas turbines. CBP states that it is also proposing to revoke any treatment it has previously accorded to substantially identical transactions that are contrary to its position in these notices.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced that the 2004/2005 tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for the August 1, 2004 through July 31, 2005 period on the following cotton will open on August 2, 2004 at 1:00 p.m. EDT or its equivalent in other time zones:
The International Trade Commission (ITC) has issued a notice announcing that, following receipt of a request from the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), it has instituted an investigation under 19 USC 3804(f) regarding the potential economy-wide and selected sectoral effects of the proposed U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement (FTA), and will seek input through a public hearing on August 10, 2004.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an administrative message which states that its Commercial Enforcement Branch has reviewed importations of "catfish" made on and after July 1, 2004 and found that importers and filers are not using the new statistical breakouts approved by the 484(f) committee that were effective July 1, 2004.
The Journal of Commerce Online reports that the World Trade Organization (WTO) Heads of Delegations will meet on August 3, 2004 on the January 1, 2005 elimination of textile and apparel quotas imposed on WTO member countries. The article notes that only 17 countries have been invited to this meeting -including the U.S., European Union, China and India - but that other countries want to attend. (JoC Online, dated 07/27/04, www.joc.com )
The Census Bureau has posted to its Web site a list of 177 Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) numbers that are not valid for reporting exports (either on a paper Shipper's Export Declaration (SED) or Automated Export System (AES) equivalent) as of July 1, 2004.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued its weekly quota commodity report as of July 26, 2004. This report includes tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on various products such as beef, tuna, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa powder, tobacco, certain JFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA TRQs, etc. This report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, CBTPA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA tariff preference levels (TPLs) for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics under HTS 9902.51.11 & 9902.51.12, etc. (CBP's weekly quota commodity report, dated 07/26/04, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)