U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site its weekly quota commodity report as of January 6, 2004. This report includes tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on various products such as beef, tuna, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cocoa, tobacco, certain Jordan Free Trade Agreement (JFTA), Chile Free Trade Agreement (UCFTA), and Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SFTA) TRQs, etc. This report also includes TRQs on certain HTS Chapter 52 cotton, upland cotton under HTS Chapter 99, the UCFTA, SFTA, CBTPA, AGOA, ATPDEA, and NAFTA tariff preference levels (TPLs) for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics under HTS 9902.51.11 & 9902.51.12, etc. (CBP's weekly quota commodity report, dated 01/06/04, available at http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)

The Wall Street Journal reports that DNA testing has confirmed that the Washington state cow infected with mad-cow disease came from Canada, a development that allows the U.S. beef industry to shift blame but probably will not appease many countries enough to lift their bans on U.S. beef imports anytime soon. (WSJ dated 01/07/04, www.wsj.com.)

(Read Footnotes and Disclaimers at End of Notice)

(Read Footnotes and Disclaimers at End of Notice)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued additional instructions on the Special Bill programming (new non-vessel operating common carrier (NVOCC) and Master vessel operating common carrier (VOCC) bill types) for Sea Automated Manifest System (AMS) which was moved into the production environment (i.e., implemented) during the normally scheduled system outage of 11:00 p.m. EST Saturday, January 10, 2004 to 3:00 a.m. Sunday, January 11, 2004.

In December 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it would soon issue several additional measures intended to further strengthen protections against Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has issued a press release announcing education and enforcement plans for its new trucking hours-of-service rule. According to the press release, starting January 4, 2004, when the rule was implemented, state and federal officials expect to spend the first 60 days waging an aggressive educational campaign and enforcing egregious violations. (See ITT's Online Archives or 12/04/03 news, 03120410, for BP reminder on the enforcement of the hours-of-service rule, with links to previous BP summaries.) (FMCSA press release, dated 12/30/03, www.fmcsa.dot.gov/contactus/press/2003/123003.htm.)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a notice announcing that the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) for dairy products, provided for in HTS Chapter 4, Additional U.S. Note (AUSN) 10, which opened on January 2, 2004, partially oversubscribed at the opening. According to CBP, the All Other Countries limit oversubscribed and the minimum access quantity for Belgium/Denmark (aggregated) was exceeded. However, the minimum access quantity for Australia was not reached and is therefore still available.

The International Trade Administration (ITA) frequently issues notices on antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty orders which Broker Power considers to be "minor" in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued and neither announce nor cause any changes to an order's duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period.

The Treasury Department has published its current list of countries that may require participation in, or cooperation with, an international boycott. The countries included on this list are: