The Foreign-Trade Zones Board issued the following notices on April 2:
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is hosting two additional in-person hearings on how to promote U.S. supply chain resilience through trade negotiations or enforcement and one virtual hearing.
The U.S. is asking Mexico to address its allegation that the Servicios Industriales González facility in Nuevo Leon fired some workers for union activity; threatened the independent union Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores del Ramo de Transporte en General, La Construcción y sus Servicios (SNTTYC); and allowed Federacion Nacional de Sindicatos Independientes (FNSI) access to the workplace. Despite its name, FNSI is not an independent union, but rather is part of the labor union structure dating back to the early 20th century, which the U.S. says was in league with employers, not members, and led to wage suppression.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who has opposed the proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel Corp. by Japan-based Nippon Steel Corp. since it was announced in December (see 2312200056), said April 2 that a new report about Nippon Steel’s ties to China provides another reason for the Biden administration to reject the deal.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website April 1, 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.
The country of origin for omega-3-acid ethyl ester capsules is Norway for the purposes of government procurement, as they don't undergo a substantial transformation when the Norwegian active pharmaceutical ingredient is combined with inactive ingredients in China, CBP said. The product's name, character or use doesn't change as a result of the processing in China, CBP said.
The U.S. government hasn't yet identified a timeline for cleanup of the wreckage at the Port of Baltimore after the Francis Scott Key Bridge was hit by a container ship on March 26 (see 2403260047), Baltimore Port Director Adam Rottman said on an April 2 CBP call. Rotman said CBP also is requiring that cars that were already cleared for export must be transported under bond to a new port. CBP will issue further CSMS messages as it gets "more concrete information," another CBP official on the call said.
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PHILADELPHIA -- CBP has not issued any withhold release orders for goods unrelated to Uyghur forced labor since the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act passed in late 2021. Eric Choy, the CBP official whose office oversees the ban on goods made with forced labor, said that targeting forced labor abuses outside of China "is something that we're definitely reprioritizing resources [for], to focus in on those efforts." Choy, who is executive director of Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate, said in an interview during the CBP Trade Facilitation and Cargo Security Summit last week that he expects there will be a WRO announced before October.