House Ways and Means Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer is introducing "The Import Security and Fairness Act," which would add some restrictions around the $800 de minimis level. Under the bill, goods from countries that are both non-market economies and on the U.S. Trade Representative's intellectual property watch list wouldn't be eligible for de minimis provisions. Currently, the only country that is both a non-market economy and labeled as an IP violator is China. Blumenauer has said that 83% of de minimis packages come from China.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top 20 stories published in 2021 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference numbers.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Nov. 29 - Dec. 3 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The leader of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee focused on making it easier for domestic industry to win antidumping and countervailing duty cases and said that the de minimis statute needs to be altered, in a hearing designed to talk about how Chinese practices damage workers, businesses and the environment.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said the $800 de minimis threshold amounts to a huge loophole, and he's going to propose major changes to the law. He said that millions of packages a day enter the U.S. under de minimis, and "nobody's monitoring it. We don't know what's forced labor, what has circumvented intellectual property, counterfeit goods, drugs. CBP's getting better, but who can monitor millions of packages a day?"
Plans to update statutory language to allow for CBP to use advance cargo data "for any lawful purpose" is an early area of concern among trade groups that submitted comments to the office of Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., about a draft customs modernization bill (see 2111030039). That provision "is a significant amendment to the Trade Act of 2002 manifest requirements and will present a challenge regarding how the agency will merge and crosscheck data received from multiple parties," the Express Association of America told Cassidy, EAA Executive Director Michael Mullen said by email.
The Customs Modernization Act is a bit of a misnomer, a Sidley Austin advisory says, encouraging firms to tell Sen. Bill Cassidy's office that changes are needed to make it beneficial to importers. The discussion draft of the bill was released so that it wouldn't produce unintended consequences for importers or businesses that provide services to importers, the Louisiana Republican's spokesman said (see 2111030035).
Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for the Western Hemisphere Daniel Watson and Andrés Cárdenas Muñoz, Colombia's vice minister of foreign trade, directed their customs and trade facilitation teams to have another discussion on lessons learned and future plans "especially with regard to the digitalization of customs procedures," according to a USTR readout of the Oct. 22 meeting.
Shipmonk, an e-commerce fulfillment and inventory management provider, acquired El Mar Mexico and its fulfillment center based in Tecate, Mexico, Shipmonk said Oct. 21. The acquisition will allow for customers to "legally bypass taxing on the majority of U.S. shipments, eliminating tariffs and import duties" due to the Section 321 exemption allowed on low-value goods, it said. "Goods are legally imported into a free trade zone in Mexico under special license, and then shipped directly to the U.S. consumer within ShipMonk's comprehensive shipping zone coverage area, without paying duties and tariff fees," it said.
RANCHO MIRAGE, California -- Lawyers are seeing a rise in cases filed against customs brokers for failing to meet their fiduciary duties, said Cameron Roberts, a Roberts & Kehagiaras trade attorney. Many of the cases involve importers who allege their brokers didn’t correctly advise them about issues related to forced labor, Section 301 tariffs and certain agriculture imports, he said. “All of these issues are being put at the foot of the broker,” Roberts said, speaking during the Oct. 15 Western Cargo Conference.