The Foreign-Trade Zones Board issued the following notices on March 18:
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced country-by-country allocations of additional FY 2024 in-quota quantities of the tariff-rate quotas for imported raw cane sugar. Of the 125,000 metric tons raw value added to the raw cane sugar TRQ by USDA in early March (see 2403060084), USTR is allocating quota amounts as follows: Australia 15,555; Belize 2,061; Bolivia 1,499; Brazil 27,174; Colombia 4,498; Costa Rica 2,811; Ecuador 2,061; El Salvador 4,873; Eswatini (Swaziland) 2,998; Fiji 1,687; Guatemala 8,996; Guyana 2,249; Honduras 1,874; Jamaica 2,061; Mozambique 2,436; Peru 7,684; Philippines 25,300; South Africa 4,310; Thailand 2,624; and Zimbabwe 2,249. The changes are effective March 19.
More than a quarter of the U.S. Senate asked the U.S. trade representative to push back against the EU Deforestation-Free Regulation, saying the approach presents "significant compliance issues due to its stringency and ambiguity. One specific concern is the traceability requirement. The EUDR imposes a geolocation traceability requirement that mandates sourcing to the individual plot of land for every shipment of timber product to the EU. In the U.S., 42 percent of the wood fiber used by pulp and paper mills comes from wood chips, forest residuals, and sawmill manufacturing residues -- wood sources that cannot be traced back to an individual forest plot."
A House member who is running for the Senate in Indiana asked the Commerce Department to initiate an investigation on the import of electric vehicles and electric vehicle batteries made anywhere in the world.
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 15, 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.
CBP created Harmonized System Update (HSU) 2404 on March 15, containing 2,083 ABI records and 338 Harmonized Tariff Schedule records. The update includes several partner government agency Harmonized Tariff Schedule flag updates, as well as adjustments required by the verification of the 2024 HTS.
CBP announced an Enforce and Protect Act investigation and said it has reasonable suspicion that Kings Marble and Granite, Musa Stone Import, and KMG Marble and Granite evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on quartz surface products from China. The agency said this finding made the enactment of interim measures necessary.
The Court of International Trade on March 18 said that the U.S. waited too long to send surety firm Aegis Security Insurance Co. a bill for an unpaid customs bond on Chinese garlic imports that entered in 2004. Judge Stephen Vaden said that the government's eight-year delay in demanding the payment from Aegis "was unreasonable and a breach of contract." The court said the delay broke the "reasonable time requirement" -- an "implied contractual term."
The Department of Energy is setting new energy efficiency standards for residential clothes washers that, if they take effect as planned, will require compliance in 2028, it said in a direct final rule published March 15.