CBP has released its Jan. 31 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 58, No. 04). While it contains recent court decisions, no customs rulings are included.
An analysis of how the stricter rule of origin for auto imports has been implemented -- including the unprecedented labor value content element -- praised coordination among the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Labor Department, CBP and other agencies with expertise, but noted that final regulations have been held up because the U.S. has not reached a final resolution in the dispute it lost at a USMCA panel.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas directed CBP and Homeland Security Investigations to "provide him with a comprehensive enforcement action plan in 30 days" to protect domestic textile interests. The announcement, after a meeting with domestic textile mill owners who asked the government to step up free trade agreement enforcement and Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act apparel enforcement and to end de minimis sales, also says that report should include "a determination whether current trade law provides adequate authorities to solve the core issues."
Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who tracked the ways the U.S.-China phase one trade agreement fell short, has joined the State Department as chief economist.
As Josh Kagan leaves as assistant U.S. trade representative for labor, USTR Katherine Tai announced that Katy Mastman will replace him in an acting capacity. Tai said, "Josh’s leadership has been instrumental in our successful use of the USMCA Rapid Response Labor Mechanism and work to eradicate forced labor in supply chains."
The International Trade Commission is issuing a limited exclusion order banning imports of imported graphics processing chips from TCL and Realtek that it found to be infringing on patents held by AMD, the ITC said in a notice Jan. 30 that brings the commission's Section 337 investigation to a close (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1318).
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register Jan. 30 on the following AD/CV duty proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
The Commerce Department on Jan. 31 finalized an interim rule on the dispute settlement mechanism for reviewing antidumping and countervailing duty decisions from the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The rule references the provision under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement as opposed to the relevant article under the North American Free Trade Agreement -- the predecessor to the USMCA.
Imports of collated steel staples from Thailand and Vietnam made from Chinese wire or wire band are circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties on collated steel staples from China (A-570-112/C-570-113), the Commerce Department said in a Jan. 30 final determination in an anti-circumvention inquiry.
On Jan. 29, the FDA posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of: