On March 28, the FDA posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation announced March 28 that Special Import Quota #24 for upland cotton will be established April 4, allowing importation of 6,526,283 kilograms (29,975 bales) of upland cotton, unchanged from the previous quota period. The quota will apply to upland cotton purchased not later than July 2, 2024, and entered into the U.S. by Sept. 30, 2024. The quota is equivalent to one week's consumption of cotton by domestic mills at the seasonally adjusted average rate for the November 2023 through January 2024 period, the most recent three months for which data is available.
Paulo Perez-Mendoza of Stockton, California, was charged March 28 with conspiracy to "receive and sell smuggled pesticides" into the U.S., the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California announced.
A consumer filed suit in New York on March 27 alleging that the aluminum foil brand Reynolds, which her complaint called “a staple of Americana,” harmed consumers by falsely advertising that its foil was made in the U.S. (Anaya Washington v. Reynolds Consumer Products LLC, S.D.N.Y. # 24-02327).
The U.S. brought a customs penalty suit against importer E-Dong U.S.A. for failure to pay federal excise tax on entries of soju bottles from South Korea. Filing a complaint March 28 at the Court of International Trade, the government said that the company entered the soju, a Korean spirit, via "material or false statement" by failing to reference any of the owed excise tax (U.S. v. E-Dong, U.S.A., CIT # 24-00066).
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 March 28, 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.
Vessels arriving with cargo for unloading in Baltimore may consider using a different U.S. port until further notice, CBP said in a CSMS message on March 29. Vessel arrival notices and manifest updates would be required to make a switch, including updating the port of unlading, the agency said in the notice. The port has been closed to vessel traffic since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed March 26 (see 2403260047).
PHILADELPHIA -- The glacial pace of developing electronically submitted export manifests is finally picking up, participants on a CBP export modernization panel said, with Tom Pagano, outbound enforcement policy branch chief, saying "we're really close."
PHILADELPHIA -- CBP officials who clear or reject packages from importers seeking to show there is no Uyghur labor anywhere in the supply chain of a detained product said it's not enough to assemble a paper trail of every transaction and vendor from raw material to finished good.