Trade Facilitation and Cargo Security Summit Registration Opens February 22nd U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will open the registration to its 2023 Trade Facilitation Cargo Summit on February 22nd, 2023, at 12:00 PM Eastern time. The Summit will be held in Boston from April 17th to April 19th.  The registration information and the hotel location will be published on …

CBP Clarifies China Postal Code Requirement In November 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unveiled new requirements for postal codes to be included in China Manufacturer ID’s. The instructions implied that a China postal code will be required when a China MID is used for the release of cargo and for entry summary line information when an item is …

USTR Extends Several China 301 Exclusions! The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has announced that the 352 exclusions from China 301 duties that were extended back on March 28, 2022, and were due to expire on December 31, 2022, have been extended for nine months. They are now due to expire on September 30, 2023. The list of …

President Biden Requests Congressional Pressure to Resolve Potential Rail Strike The votes on the union ratification of the proposed contract with the railroads have been submitted.  8 of the 12 unions ratified the contracts and 4 rejected the contract. This has set up a potential strike after December 9, 2022, which is when the cooling off period ends. President Biden …

Reminder:  USTR is Looking for Comments on Effects of 301 duty The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is looking for comments on the impact of China 301 duties. They are looking for comments on the following questions:  Has there been any effectiveness on changing China’s polices and what are the effects on U.S. businesses?  Have they affected your …

UFLPA Region Notice for MID’s In a Memo to Clients earlier this week, we wrote about U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s new instructions about adding a postal code to MID’s from sources in China. The deployment has been indefinitely postponed, but CBP has issued an alert to explain why this new requirement is being initiated. This notice can be found …

CBP Will Deploy New Requirements for MID’s from China CBP has set up a a new requirement for Manufacturer Identification Codes for when the country of origin is China for Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act (ULPFA) enforcement. Here is the current language of the deployment: “The UFLPA Region Alert will add three new validations that will be performed when Country …

The USTR Announced a New Review of Section 301 China Duties The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has announced its plans for conducting a review of the Section 301 China duties. The USTR has determined that the Section 301 China duties for Lists 1 and 2 will be continued. With the extension of these duties, it is a …

FDA Food Facility Renewal Registration Begins Oct. 1 The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Food Facility Registration Renewal will open on October 1, 2022.  The registration period will be open through December 31, 2022. All food facilities of an importer’s supply chains must submit a timely renewal. Failure to do so will cause products to be denied entry into the …

Rail Strike Averted The rail strike that was due to go into effect at midnight Friday has been averted. The Secretary of Labor made an announcement this morning that after 20 hours of negotiation an agreement was reached. The agreement must still be ratified by the rank and file of the unions, but there will be no work stoppage for …

 Railroad Strike Looms The US Class 1 railroads are facing a possible shutdown due a potential rail strike. The railroads have been negotiating with several rail unions and some deals have been made with 10 out of the 12 rail unions. The two that are left are the biggest of the twelve: The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and …

South Korea Expresses Concerns on Electric Vehicle Provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act South Korea has expressed its concerns about the provisions on electrical vehicles in the Inflation Reductions Act. The Trade Industry and Energy Minister have said that while South Korea supports the efforts to expand clean energy, the Act grants tax benefits to U.S. EV’s over imported EV’s …

User Fee Increase Coming October 1 U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced an increase in user fees in a Federal Register Notice (FRN) issued on August 1, 2022. Cobra fees for 23 separate user fees will be increased. This includes Merchandise Processing Fees charged on Customs entries. For formal entries, the ad valorum rate of .3465% will …

CBP Introduces New Green Trade Strategy Customs and Border Protection (CBP) launched the “Green Trade Strategy,” a framework to incentivize green trade, strengthen the agency’s environmental enforcement posture, accelerate green innovation, and improve climate resilience and resource efficiency. The agency said the strategy sets up a proactive model to combat the negative impacts of climate change on the agency’s trade …

UFLPA Instructions Have Been Published Today the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the strategy instructions of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) which were expected to be released on June 21. The strategy instructions were required to be released to the trade in order to begin enforcement of the Act. A copy of the “Strategy to Prevent the …

Operational Guidelines on UFPLA are not the Final Word Last Friday we sent out a memo touting U.S Customs and Border Protections Guidelines for the Uyghur Forced Labor Act (UFPLA). These are not the instructions that we have all been waiting for. These are actually operational guidelines that summarize much of what CBP has been presenting on their many webinars. …

CBP Announces Trade Symposium Registration U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced that registration for this year’s Trade Symposium will open on June 1, at 12:00 PM EST. They will send out details on how to register that morning. We will send out a message to everyone who receives our memo as soon as we get more details. The …

CBP is Issuing “Known Importer” Letters in Advance of UFLPA U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has started to send out letters to importers who are identified as possibly having previously imported goods that may be subject to enforcement under the Uyghur Forced Labor Act (UFLPA) which will become effective on June 21, 2022. Under ULFLPA, there is a presumption …

Congress Passes Legislation to Suspend Russia and Belarus from Normal Trade Relations The U.S. Congress has passed bill HR 7108 – Suspending Normal Trade Relations with Russia and Belarus Act and submitted it in to President Biden. This act will temporarily revoke the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status from both Russia and Belarus and subject them to HTSUS Column 2 …

USTR Reinstates 352 Exclusions to China 301 Duties On March 23, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) made an announcement of reinstatement of 352 of the China 301 duty exclusions that expired last year. These exclusions include 137 from List 1, 59 from List 3 and 87 form List 4a. We should be able to file entries under …