While a top CBP official didn't give any specifics on how many brokerages were suspended from a pilot that allows electronic clearance of de minimis packages (see 2405310054), he told attendees at an annual National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference not to "be afraid of that enforcement," as the brokers who were suspended were so lax that there wasn't even anything that the companies could argue about with CBP.
The U.S. will ban the import and sale of vehicles with hardware or software that facilitates communication to GPS satellites and drivers' cellphones, or software and hardware that allow driverless operation, if those goods come from China or Russia, under a notice of proposed rulemaking.
A subgroup of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee Secure Trade Lanes Subcommittee laid out eight recommendations for how to beef up communications among CBP's Centers of Excellence and Expertise, brokers and other trade entities amid growing pressures at CBP to be vigilant over forced labor, antidumping and other threats.
Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, who was a Republican representative from Michigan, told a think tank audience that the lame duck session of the current Congress is likely to be consumed with government funding negotiations, and that leadership is unlikely to put a vote on the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program on the calendar, no matter its logic, unless members of both legislative bodies actively lobby the leaders of his former committee and the Senate Finance Committee.
A Department of Treasury official acknowledged Sept. 18 that “personnel changes in the Treasury Security Department” are creating a backlog in the process of appointing additional members to the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee.
A former Trump administration trade official said he can't predict whether a global 10% or 20% tariff will be imposed early under a potential new Trump administration, or exactly how tariffs on Chinese goods might be hiked, but Akin partner Clete Willems said he's telling business people to take these ideas seriously, even if every proposed change doesn't come true.
As the House Ways and Means Committee discusses moving toward a proposal closer to the Senate Finance Committee chairman's bill to restrict de minimis, the top Republican on the Finance Committee is not publicly opposing the core ideas of that bill -- removing apparel and footwear from eligibility from all countries, and not allowing goods subject to Section 301 tariffs to enter duty-free.
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.
Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Trade Compliance partners in good standing may have access to a new benefit, CBP says: the use of a foreign-trade zone to store goods subject to possible forced labor enforcement action.
When filing unused merchandise drawback claims, companies can select the unit of measure they want to use for calculating per unit averaging where two units of measure are provided on the entry summary, provided that companies keep two conditions, according to a recent CROSS ruling issued by CBP.