U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recently posted the following to its Web site:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a general notice announcing that the next group, or cluster, of ports to be deployed for the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE)/National Customs Automation Program (NCAP) test concerning the transmission of automated truck manifest data for truck carrier accounts will occur at certain ports in Michigan.
On October 7, 2005 the Senate passed the conference version of H.R. 2360, the fiscal year (FY) 2006 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), etc. The House passed the conference version of H.R. 2360 on October 6, 2005.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site various materials related to presentations made at the September 26-29, 2005 meeting of the Trade Support Network (TSN).
According to a September 28, 2005 Textile Development Memo issued by the U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel (USA-ITA), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is about to unveil an interim regulation repealing the multicountry and single textile declaration requirement. According to the article, a formal Federal Register notice is imminent and will, on an interim basis, revise 19 CFR 12.130 to delete the textile declaration requirement. (USA-ITA TDM dated 09/28/05, www.usaita.com.)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site the August 2005 issue of U.S. Customs and Border ProtectionModernization Monthly newsletter which discusses, among other things, the first ACE participating government agencies (PGAs) receiving access to the ACE Secure Data Portal.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site a notice announcing the opening of the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) on cocoa powder as provided for in HTS Chapter 18, Additional U.S. Note (AUSN) 1 for the period October 1, 2005 through September 30, 2006.
CBP has issued its weekly quota commodity report as of September 26, 2005. This report includes tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on various products such as beef, tuna, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa powder, tobacco, certain JFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, UAFTA and UCFTA TRQs, etc. This report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, CBTPA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA (CFTA) tariff preference levels (TPLs) for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics, etc. (CBP's weekly quota commodity report, dated 09/26/05, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a document entitled: ACE Accomplishments: 1999 - September 2005, which lists, in date order, certain accomplishments in the development of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). According to CBP, this list is current as of September 22, 2005.
According to a September 27, 2005 statement by USTR Special Textile Negotiator David Spooner, the third round of talks with the Chinese aimed at reaching agreement on textiles continued the evening of September 27th. The Textile Negotiator stated that "we have made good progress in our discussions over the past couple of days and, although we still have differences, we feel that additional time to work on the issues would be beneficial." (USTR Statement, dated 09/27/05, available at http://www.ustr.gov/Document_Library/Spokesperson_Statements/Statement_of_David_Spooner_USTR_Special_Textile_Negotiator_Regarding_the_Third_Round_of_Textile_Talks_with_the_Chinese_in_Washin.html )