A new bill from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's top Republican and a Democratic member would renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act trade preference program for 16 years, offer more flexibility on country eligibility reviews, and soften the high-income graduation rules.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she hopes "we can announce the result of [the Section 301] review soon," though she later declined to say whether that would be when she appears next week before the House and Senate committees that oversee her office.

Lori Wallach, head of Rethink Trade and a longtime free-trade skeptic, said the House Ways and Means Committee plans to vote next week on a new bill to restrict de minimis, which wouldn't allow goods subject to Section 301 tariffs to enter through the de minimis pathway. The Section 301 tariffs covered roughly two-thirds of Chinese exports at the time the last round was imposed, but trade flows have shifted as a result of the tariffs, as imports of those tariff lines from China fell by 13%, according to the International Trade Commission.

Work gloves manufactured by Shanghai Select Products Company, and its subsidiaries Select (Nantong) Safety Products Co. Limited and Select Protective Technology (HK) Limited, cannot enter the U.S. because CBP says it has information that reasonably indicates the gloves were made with convict labor.

A bill that directs the Biden administration to promulgate rules within 18 months to require data submissions for de minimis importers was introduced April 9 by Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., called the Ensure Accountability in De Minimis Act.

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told an audience of domestic textile producers that de minimis is based on a "false premise" that low value means low risk, and said that is not the case.

CBP properly assessed antidumping duties on an entry of quartz surface products from China, the agency said, rejecting a protest from a U.S. importer that argued its products entered the port before a U.S. antidumping duty order took effect. CBP, in a ruling dated Jan. 25, said even though the products reached the initial port in Los Angeles before the order, they didn’t reach their final port of entry in Dallas until later, which made them subject to the AD order.

DHS announced that more companies in what it called "the high-priority textile sector" should be added to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act's Entity List, joining the 10 already on that list -- just one item in what it's calling "a new comprehensive enforcement action plan" for textiles.

Lawyers at Miller & Chevalier noted that the first two months of 2024 saw 30% more shipments stopped for suspicion of links to Uyghur forced labor than in the same period a year ago -- and that the value of those detentions tripled.