Felicia Pullam, executive director of trade relations at CBP, defended the administration's proposal to end de minimis eligibility for goods subject to Section 301 tariffs as workable, arguing that charging a $2 fee per de minimis package will allow the agency to hire more staff to screen for contraband, and pushing back on industry arguments that collecting tariffs on low-value packages costs the agency more than that revenue.
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.
Global steel excess capacity is reaching "crisis levels," which distorts trade and drives the price of steel down, displacing market-based production, said Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Small Business, Market Access, and Industrial Competitiveness Sushan Demirjian.
The Government Accountability Office, in a report required by the Dodd-Frank Act to assess the effectiveness of tracing regimes for conflict minerals, found the law hasn't reduced violence in the Congo, and may have increased violence around some small gold mines.
Reps. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., and Frank Mrvan, D-Ind., the leaders of the Congressional Steel Caucus, told Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that fabricated structural steel and prestressed concrete strand need to be subject to 25% Section 232 tariffs, because "bad actors" are exporting the goods to avoid the 25% tariffs on steel.
Sandler Travis managing partner Lenny Feldman said that CBP decided to delay an ACE validation for de minimis shipments to a recipient that would exceed $800 a day, because "they realized when this hits, there's going to be a significant amount of cargo that's going to be above the threshold."
House Ways and Means Committee members Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, and Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., led some fellow committee members and other House members in asking U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to brief them on the status of the dispute over Mexico's policy on genetically modified corn, and how that might affect the 2026 review of the USMCA.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, in responses to Senate Finance Committee members, talked about changes needed in USMCA, declined to endorse a permanent e-commerce tariff moratorium and called for more money for CBP, to address Section 301 tariff circumvention.
An effort to change CBP rules to allow more information sharing on counterfeits with rights holders has been attached to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said this week.
A hearing about the Time to Choose Act, a bipartisan bill that would ban consultants and other service providers from working both with the U.S. government and Chinese-owned companies, Senate Homeland Security Committee ranking member Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he agreed with a witness who said it could create a slippery slope.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and chairman of the Budget Committee, recently introduced a bill that would allow the administration to impose Section 301 tariffs on goods made outside of China if they are made by Chinese firms.