On April 10, the FDA posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
The Foreign-Trade Zones Board issued the following notices on April 11:
Five members of House Ways and Means Committee and the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Indo-Pacific introduced a bill that would set up an ‘‘Indo-Pacific Trade Strategy Commission’’ to make recommendations to Congress on a comprehensive trade policy in the region, and direct the International Trade Commission to produce a report on how the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral free trade agreement and China's Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership multilateral free trade agreement affect U.S. exports and growth opportunities in the Indo-Pacific. The report also would address differences between the TPP successor, RCEP, and the USMCA, and the impact of Asian regional trade agreements on U.S. supply chain resiliency, and how they affect China's role in key global supply chains.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website April 10, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
In the April 10 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 58, No. 14), CBP published a proposal to revoke and modify ruling letters concerning nonslip grip pads and an automotive clutch tube.
Lori Wallach, head of Rethink Trade and a longtime free-trade skeptic, said the House Ways and Means Committee plans to vote next week on a new bill to restrict de minimis, which wouldn't allow goods subject to Section 301 tariffs to enter through the de minimis pathway. The Section 301 tariffs covered roughly two-thirds of Chinese exports at the time the last round was imposed, but trade flows have shifted as a result of the tariffs, as imports of those tariff lines from China fell by 13%, according to the International Trade Commission.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she hopes "we can announce the result of [the Section 301] review soon," though she later declined to say whether that would be when she appears next week before the House and Senate committees that oversee her office.
The Federal Maritime Commission's enforcement bureau is asking the agency's administrative law judge to fine major ocean carrier Mediterranean Shipping Company $63.2 million for violating U.S. shipping regulations. MSC used “overbroad” merchant clauses in its bills of lading, billed incorrect rates for certain containers and failed to publish certain container tariff rates, causing "obscurity" and "uncertainty" for shippers, the commission's Bureau of Enforcement, Investigations and Compliance said in an April 3 report.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is extending for one more year the temporary listing of three synthetic benzimidazole-opioid substances -- butonitazene, flunitazene and metodesnitazene -- in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, it said in a notice released April 10. The synthetic benzimidazole-opioids, first temporarily listed in 2022 (see 2204110029), will now remain listed in Schedule I until April 12, 2025. DEA also released a proposed rule to permanently list these synthetic benzimidazole-opioids in Schedule I, with comments due May 13. Substances may be temporarily listed under the CSA for three years.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is permanently placing the synthetic benzimidazole-opioids etodesnitazene, n-pyrrolidino etonitazene and protonitazene in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, it said in a final order released April 10. The substances had already been temporarily listed in Schedule I since 2022 (see 2204110029). The final order is set to take effect April 11.