CBP will announce a prototype test for type 86 e-commerce entries in the Federal Register very soon, according John Leonard, executive director of the CBP Office of Trade, Policy and Programs. Leonard, who was speaking at the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting in Laredo, Texas, on May 30, said the new entry type would be for de minimis shipments that have partner government agency requirements. Last month, CBP said it is aiming to publish a notice on the testing of the new Entry Type 86 in the fall. Those entry forms would provide data that would be helpful for risk segmentation, Thomas Overacker, CBP executive director, Cargo and Conveyance Security, said then (see 1904170008).
California's Kevin McCarthy, the leader of House Republicans, has said the new NAFTA only needs a "few votes" to get a majority in the House, where ratification will begin. But when asked by International Trade Today if his side has a sense of how many Republican "no" votes there might be, McCarthy said they haven't asked. In 1993, 43 Republicans voted against ratifying NAFTA.
Trade Partnership Worldwide President Laura Baughman stands by her organization’s February survey report that found levying Section 301 tariffs on all remaining $300 billion in Chinese imports in addition to other sanctions in effect would cause severe U.S. economic harm, she said in an email. President Donald Trump's chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow, in a Fox News Sunday appearance May 12, called the study flawed. He tried to make the case that any economic "consequences" would be "modest" and well worth it.
The Department of Justice and Selective Marketplace agreed to a settlement over allegations of illegal use of de minims exemptions, the DOJ said in a May 13 news release. The DOJ agreed to join the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Maine in March (see 1904190006) as part of a qui tam whistleblower suit. The company, which is based in England, will pay a total of $610,000 to resolve the suit, the DOJ said.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for April 29 - May 3 in case they were missed.
Washington state Democratic Rep. Suzan DelBene, who is for free trade, told U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that she's becoming increasingly concerned about his position on de minimis. "I was troubled to see that the report you sent to Congress identifying changes to U.S. law suggested that you would seek to amend the statute that sets the de minimis threshold in the United States," she wrote in a follow-up to his Ways and Means Committee appearance in February,. "Do you plan to include language in the draft [U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement] implementing legislation that would reduce the US de minimis threshold? If so, what specific changes will you seek?"
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for April 15-19 in case they were missed.
Industry groups and unions continued to react to the International Trade Commission's analysis of the new NAFTA the day after the report was released, with most saying the report confirmed what they already knew.
The Department of Justice recently agreed to intervene in a qui tam whistleblower lawsuit against Selective Marketplace Ltd. and the company's alleged use of de minimis exemptions for the expressed reason of avoiding customs duties, the DOJ said in a March 27 filing. The filing was in U.S. District Court for the District of Maine because "a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claims occurred in this District," the DOJ said. Selective, which is based in England, mostly sells premium womenswear under the Wrap London and Poetry brands, the DOJ said.
SAN ANTONIO -- CBP is looking at using "prescriptive analytics" as a way of making the rulings process faster, said Brenda Smith, CBP executive assistant commissioner-trade, at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America's annual conference on April 17. Such analytics involve a review of the data that "puts out a couple of options for action," she said. While "we don't want a machine doing classification," CBP would like to use technology to improve efficiency on rulings, she said.