The Commerce Department will consider whether to grant Armenia market economy status for antidumping duty purposes, it said in a notice released Feb. 12 beginning a changed circumstances review.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the House Select Committee on China, announced Feb. 10 that he won't run for re-election this year. Gallagher said it is time for him to return to private life after serving four terms in the House. As the committee's top Republican, Gallagher led probes on a range of China trade issues, including a report in December that called on the U.S. to impose stronger export controls against China (see 2312120050) and revoke the country's permanent normal trade relations status (see 2312120004).
Exporters are reporting container costs changing from week to week due to attacks by Houthi rebels on commercial cargo ships moving through the Red Sea, said Eric Bartsch, the secretary of the USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council and the American Pulse Association. Bartsch, speaking during a Feb. 7 Federal Maritime Commission hearing on Red Sea shipping disruptions (see 2402070078), said many of pea, lentil and pulse exporters are small businesses, and 65% of their crops are exported.
Starting March 1, non-industrial diamonds of 1 carat or greater, mined in Russia but with another country of origin cannot be entered into the U.S., whether by import or into a foreign-trade zone, unless the Office of Foreign Assets Control licensed that import.
The Commerce Department has published the final results of the antidumping duty administrative review on xanthan gum from China (A-570-985). These final results will be used to set final assessments of AD on importers for subject merchandise entered July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022.
The Commerce Department has published the final results of the antidumping duty administrative review on steel nails from Malaysia (A-557-816). These final results will be used to set final assessments of AD duties on importers for subject merchandise entered July 2021 through June 2022.
On Feb. 2, the FDA posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
Automakers and their suppliers are telling the Biden administration in comments submitted ahead of an upcoming report that not having a form for certificate of origin has paradoxically made compliance more difficult. They also said that companies are having a difficult time certifying how much workers in the supply chain earn, and that the absence of final USMCA regulations are all problems for trade compliance in the more than three years since USMCA took effect.
Lori Wallach, a long-time free-trade skeptic, urged listeners to her Rethink Trade podcast to call their members of Congress and say: "I am scared silly about the abuse of this outrageous de minimis loophole. What is the congressman going to do to close this loophole?"
Human Rights Watch says that "some car manufacturers in China have succumbed to government pressure to apply weaker human rights and responsible sourcing standards at their Chinese joint ventures than in their global operations," and argues that car companies should disengage from all suppliers that source aluminum from Xinjiang, and should map aluminum supply chains back to the bauxite mines, whether for aluminum ingots or semi-fabricated aluminum.