Customs duty

Panelists from the U.S. and Mexico said that cars assembled in Mexico by Chinese-owned firms can't enter the U.S. with USMCA benefits because of the stringent rules of origin, but spent less time talking about how cars manufactured outside China, including in the U.S., could enter under 2.5% most favored nation tariffs.

Ford Motor Company agreed to pay $365 million to settle allegations that it knowingly undervalued hundreds of thousands of cargo vans, DOJ announced. The settlement comes five years after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that CBP properly classified Ford's Transit Connect vehicles as cargo vans, dutiable at 25%, and not as passenger vans, dutiable at 2.5%.

International Trade Commissioners grappled with how they should fulfill the administration's request for a report on the export competitiveness of the Bangladeshi, Indian, Cambodian, Indonesian and Pakistani apparel sectors over the last 11 years -- is it to uncover how those countries' successes could offer lessons to other developing countries that want to industrialize? Is the success of Bangladesh, which is near to crossing the threshold into a middle-income country largely on the strength of its garment sector, a country with an "unnatural and unfair advantage," because of its suppression of unions and wages, as the AFL-CIO's Eric Gottwald asserted?

Customs brokers have been pushing for a change to U.S. bankruptcy law for decades to make it so pass-through payments to CBP for tariffs are not subject to clawback after a client goes bankrupt. With a package of funding bills the Senate passed March 8, brokers got a permanent change to the law.

Democrats that represent Michigan and Ohio, where Big 3 automakers' plants are concentrated, are asking that the Section 301 review hike tariffs on Chinese automakers. Section 301 tariffs already apply a 25% tariff, making the total duty for a Chinese auto 27.5%.

The Court of International Trade on Feb. 26 issued an amended decision in a customs case on the tariff classification of five categories of chrome-plated plastic automobile parts after initially deciding the case Dec. 18. The new decision adds a discussion of axle covers, the fifth category of goods, finding them to fall under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8708 pursuant to General Rule of Interpretation 1.

Mohamed Daoud Ghacham, executive at California-based clothing wholesale company Ghacham Inc., was sentenced to 48 months in prison for undervaluing garment imports to avoid paying customs duties, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California announced Feb. 23. In addition, the Bell, California, resident will pay close to $6.4 million in restitution after pleading guilty in December 2022 to conspiracy to "pass false and fraudulent papers through a customhouse."

With no legislative action on a proposal to end China's eligibility for de minimis shipments, one of its authors, Sen. Sherrod Brown, is asking the Biden administration to end de minimis treatment for all e-commerce purchases, or, at least, stop de minimis treatment for goods subject to partner government agency review, products that are trade priorities, and goods subject to Section 301 and Section 232 tariffs.

Sens. Ted Budd, R-N.C., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., have sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai urging them to take action to “immediately and meaningfully limit the volume of Mexican steel concrete reinforcing bar (rebar) being imported into the United States.”

Robert Stein, former executive at supply chain logistics firm Mohawk Global, has joined Braumiller Consulting Group as vice president, according to his LinkedIn announcement. Stein said he will be working on foreign-trade zone, duty drawback, import/export compliance, Harmonized Tariff Schedule classification, customs valuation and free trade agreement matters.