House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., said he wants U.S. companies that source from or have operations in China to "take off the golden blindfolds, and assess the risk." Gallagher and the committee's ranking member, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., were speaking at an event hosted by Punchbowl News on July 20.
The government correctly classified counterweights for mini-excavators as "backhoe" parts, rendering them ineligible for a Section 301 tariff exclusion, CIT Judge Jane Restani ruled in a July 21 opinion.
Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., have reintroduced a bill that would refund some tariffs paid to importers of goods that were hit with tariffs as a result of the Airbus dispute with the EU. The bill also would prohibit future actions by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative that would hike tariffs on goods already in transit -- unless the tariffs were on a nonmarket economy, such as China. The bill would require USTR to set an effective date for the tariff hike no sooner than 60 days from the publication of the target list.
The New Democrat Coalition announced the release July 19 of a new economic plan that includes a "comprehensive, fair, and transparent exclusion process for existing Section 301 tariffs." The caucus' Economic Opportunity Agenda says the exclusion process will "cut costs for Americans and ease global supply chain constraints."
The House Select Committee on China, having heard from witnesses advocating a punitive approach to Chinese trade and investment (see 2305180064), asked to hear from advocates for both that approach and a more moderate one in a debate on Capitol Hill.
CBP released its July 19 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 57, No. 28), which includes the following ruling actions:
A bill that says the Taiwan trade initiative can't take effect until the administration submits an economic analysis of its effects and answers questions from Congress on implementation has passed both chambers of Congress. The bill also says the next deal between Taiwan and the U.S. must gain congressional approval.
The Federal Maritime Commission published its spring 2023 regulatory agenda and continued to mention several rules to implement the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022, including a proposed rule to define unfair or unjustly discriminatory methods that violate U.S. shipping regulations. The FMC said it plans to issue that rule in December.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is setting FY 2024 country allocations for imports under tariff-rate quotas for cane sugar and refined sugars. The FY 2024 import TRQ for raw cane sugar was established at 1,117,195 metric tons raw value (MTRV), the minimum amount to which the U.S. is committed under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Uruguay Round Agreements (see 2307050038). The USTR now allocates this TRQ among supplying countries and customs areas, as follows:
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is amending two exclusions from Section 301 tariffs to conform the tariff numbers in the descriptions of the exclusions to recent tariff schedule changes, it said in a notice. The affected exclusions are found at U.S. Notes 20(ttt)(iii)(73) and 20(ttt)(iii)(74) to subchapter III of Chapter 99.