Merchandise imported in bulk and then stored in a foreign-trade zone prior to sale is not eligible for the Section 321 exemptions when the goods are withdrawn upon consumer sales, CBP said in a Sept. 18 ruling. CBP's ruling, HQ H282601, was in response to a ruling request from Sandler Travis lawyer Robert DeCamp on behalf of the American Apparel and Footwear Association. CBP's analysis in this ruling is similar to another ruling on de minimis shipments and FTZs (see 1807180022). There are efforts underway to change the treatment of such goods, on Capitol Hill (see 1808150007) and in CBP's regulations through the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (see 1810040019).
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is not a rewritten NAFTA, President Donald Trump said Oct. 1. Instead, "This one is a brand new deal," he said during a White House event. Lawyers who have begun reading the text say the treaty builds on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the original NAFTA, while including some important new provisions. Mark Warner, a Canadian-U.S. trade lawyer, said that while Trump's speech was full of puffery, "the auto stuff is significant. I don’t think anyone should say it’s not significant."
A Canadian customs broker told a group of her colleagues from the U.S. that the last year "has been probably the most challenging year of my life." Kim Campbell, who is president of MKMarin Trade Services, fears it could get worse. If the Trump administration decides to levy tariffs on Canadian cars, car parts or uranium under Section 232, the amount of goods that now cross the border tariff-free would drop dramatically, she believes, because Canada would have to put in place counter-tariffs.
CBP is "conducting integration testing to prove compatibility of a blockchain platform with multiple partner systems," according to an update from the emerging technologies working group ahead of the Oct. 3 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) meeting. CBP began an initial "proof of concept" in September as the agency considers the potential for the distributed ledger technology (see 1808200040). "Portions of the NAFTA / CAFTA import process, specifically verification of intellectual property and relationships between licensees and licensors, have been identified as good candidates for improvement if a transition to a more digitized, decentralized system is undertaken," it said.
Advance manifest submissions will be required in the truck environment for low-value Section 321 goods starting Jan. 1, CBP's Todd Owen said at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America Government Affairs Conference on Sept. 24. "We are starting to make notice to the trade community that we are changing our policy on that and 321 shipments on truck coming from the border will require electronic submission ahead of time," he said. The truck environment was previously exempt from the advance manifest filing requirements, he said. The policy change is due in part to the added risks created with the rapid growth in low-value shipments and will allow for CBP to apply its advanced targeting to the truck environment, he said. While advance filing for trucks coming from Mexico was required in many places due to individual port directors, it's less common on the northern border, Owen said.
On the first day of tariff collection for the third phase of the U.S.-China trade war, another 5,745 products became subject to 10 percent higher levies, with the threat of an additional 15 percent levy on those products following in a little more than three months.
CBP recently posted its “estimated schedule” for upcoming deployments in ACE. Made possible by an additional $34 million in appropriations set aside for CBP ACE development this year (see 1805010035), agency development priorities include Section 321 filing capabilities in the Automated Broker Interface and automation of collection of CBP Form 5106 importer identity information (see 1805230061).
The president of Canada’s largest union said that while dairy and dispute settlement have not yet been resolved, the biggest issue preventing an agreement on NAFTA is the specter of Section 232 tariffs on autos. "If anything is to hold this deal up, it’s going to be the fact that Donald Trump has imposed 232 tariffs,” Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, said Sept. 20. “Why would Canada sign a trade agreement with the United States dealing with all the important issues, and then have Donald Trump impose a 25 percent tariff on automobiles? Why would we sign an agreement that leaves us exposed?”
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Sept. 10-14 in case they were missed.
As the director of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute ran through the areas of conflict between the U.S. and Canada in NAFTA talks -- procurement, cultural exemptions, extended patents for biologics -- she made predictions in some arenas and shrugged on others. When it comes to whether Canada will raise its de minimis from $25 Canadian to $100 U.S., as Mexico has done, Laura Dawson merely said, "These are the kinds of concessions you get at the 11th hour. We're maybe at hour 10, hour 9."