CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP is seeking comments by June 18 on an existing information collection related to the entry/immediate delivery applications and ACE cargo release, it said in a notice. CBP proposes to extend the expiration date of this information collection with minor changes to the information collected related to safeguard duties on washing machines and solar cells and Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum products, as well as an increase of the estimated burden hours associated with the collection.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will soon announce a “limited” ACE production pilot for filing of its partner government agency dataset, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America said in an emailed update. The production phase pilot, expected to begin May 1, follows the resumption of testing in the certification environment for FWS entries (see 1701190011), after FWS suspended its initial pilot in January 2017 over concerns the agency had set excessive data requirements (see 1708250042). Importers and brokers have expressed interest in the new pilot, but “very few software developers have been willing to design to the interim plan, only to have to redesign when the final plan is reached,” the NCBFAA said. “The FWS' upcoming pilot will focus initially on low volume importers at low volume ports. Any brokers who are interested in participating in the pilot should contact Tamesha Woulard (tamesha_woulard@fws.gov) to see if they could be a good fit for the initial roll out,” the trade group said. FWS did not comment.
CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, testifying in front of the Appropriations subcommittee for Homeland Security, said there's ongoing demand for additional and enhanced ACE capabilities. CBP could use an additional $5.5 million next fiscal year to develop and implement post-core functionality, he said. McAleenan, who testified April 12, said a high volume of low-value shipments, particularly through e-commerce "presents enforcement and trade facilitation challenges." McAleenan spent more time talking about immigration enforcement duties of the agency, but also said they are requesting $44.2 million for non-intrusive inspection technology, which is used both for radiation monitoring and to x-ray express packages and mail. He noted that in the last fiscal year, CBP made 118 seizures of fentanyl sent by express consignment carriers and 227 seizures in international mail -- together, the seizures interdicted almost 350 pounds of the powerful synthetic opioid. CBP also is requesting $14.8 million to modernize land ports of entry, as well as funding for 26 positions to implement the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, which he called "one of the most impactful pieces of trade legislation for CBP in more than a generation."
The slew of trade remedies "changes everything" for importers, making programs like drawback and foreign-trade zones more valuable to companies that previously didn't need to consider such options, said Amie Ahanchian, KPMG managing director, Trade and Customs Services, during an April 16 KPMG webinar. Of the 1,333 tariff lines on the Section 301 list (see 1804040019), about 60 percent, or around 800 line items, are duty-free today, she said. That means "if you're importing these items, you may not have ever considered a customs planning strategy because there were no duties to mitigate in the current trade environment," she said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP will debut a new collections system in ACE, despite some rumblings in a recent Government Accountability Office report that the agency may pursue other options (see 1803150014), CBP Office of Trade Executive Assistant Commissioner Brenda Smith said in an April 11 interview. CBP did explore alternatives as part of its routine decision-making process, including whether to keep collections in its legacy Automated Commercial System mainframe system or give collections its own separate development focus “from an acquisition perspective,” Smith said. But the obvious option was to finish collections in ACE, and other considerations were part of routine internal discussions with the goal of “making sure that we got the right answer,” she said. CBP is still working through the ACE collections development process, after facing issues that have turned out to be “more complex than we realized,” Smith said. But the eventual deployment will be an “internal financial system piece,” and CBP is “comfortable that ACE as a public-facing system is done,” she said.
Misclassification and valuation are among areas of enforcement focus for CBP's administration of the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, CBP officials said during an April 10 interview. "Classification is a way to play with it, valuation as well, but these are things we will have to look at," said John Leonard, executive director of trade policy and programs at CBP. There are some different considerations involved for looking at possible transshipments because most antidumping or countervailing duty evasions involve countries around China, such as Malaysia or Thailand, but those countries are affected by the 232 tariffs too, he said. "It's hard to put it in that same context," he said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters: