On March 8, the FDA posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
The Agricultural Marketing Service seeks comments by May 10 on a proposal to set new organic standards for mushrooms and pet food. The AMS proposed rule seeks to resolve “varying and inconsistent interpretations of the organic regulations” that have developed in the absence of organic standards specific to organic mushroom production and organic pet food handling, it said. Currently, mushrooms and pet food products are certified organic using the general organic standards, which are “an imperfect fit for both mushroom and pet food production and do not address unique aspects of either product,” AMS said.
The Foreign-Trade Zones Board issued the following notices on March 11:
The White House is requesting $239 million in funding to hire an additional 1,000 CBP officers “to stop illicit fentanyl and other contraband from entering the U.S.,” it said in a fact sheet released March 11 alongside President Joe Biden’s FY 2025 budget request. The funding had already been sought in October as part of an emergency supplemental request but had gone unmet by Congress, the fact sheet said. The budget request also seeks “$34 million" for CBP and ICE "to combat child exploitation, forced labor, and human trafficking,” the fact sheet said.
Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was found guilty March 8 of conspiring to import cocaine into the U.S. and of gun-related offenses, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced.
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 8, 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 released updated information on a dashboard with data and statistics about Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) investigations from when the EAPA was implemented in FY 2016 to FY 2024 on March 11. The webpage categorizes investigations by possible country of origin, country of transshipment, and primary evasion scheme.
International Trade Commissioners grappled with how they should fulfill the administration's request for a report on the export competitiveness of the Bangladeshi, Indian, Cambodian, Indonesian and Pakistani apparel sectors over the last 11 years -- is it to uncover how those countries' successes could offer lessons to other developing countries that want to industrialize? Is the success of Bangladesh, which is near to crossing the threshold into a middle-income country largely on the strength of its garment sector, a country with an "unnatural and unfair advantage," because of its suppression of unions and wages, as the AFL-CIO's Eric Gottwald asserted?
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register March 8 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):