The Consumer Product Safety Commission is moving forward with an expansion of its import program to focus on e-commerce and de minimis shipments, said Jim Joholske, director of CPSC’s Office of Import Surveillance, at CBP’s Virtual Trade Week July 22. Recent increases in funding for the agency means CPSC now has the resources to focus on small shipments, and will allow CPSC to staff express carrier, air cargo and international mail facilities with import personnel, he said.
Brian Feito
Brian Feito is Managing Editor of International Trade Today, Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. A licensed customs broker who spent time at the Department of Commerce calculating antidumping and countervailing duties, Brian covers a wide range of subjects including customs and trade-facing product regulation, the courts, antidumping and countervailing duties and Mexico and the European Union. Brian is a graduate of the University of Florida and George Mason University. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2012.
CBP plans to begin a pilot in late spring 2022 to test potential new global business identifiers to replace its much-maligned manufacturer/shipper identifier (MID) (see 1712080041), said James Byram, executive director of CBP’s Trade Transformation Office, July 22 at CBP’s Virtual Trade Week. In the pilot, the agency will test three potential business identifiers, with the expectation that, should the pilot succeed, it will end up requiring use of two of them as an MID replacement, Byram said.
As CBP moves toward implementation of a forced labor component in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Trade Compliance program, still hoped for by the end of September (see 2106250045), the agency is working to flesh out what will be required from participants and what benefits will be provided to them. As it stands now, CBP looks set to add a section on social compliance programs related to forced labor to the annual notification letters that are already required of the 300 some current CTPAT Trade Compliance participants, said Carmen Perez, branch chief of the Trade Compliance program at CBP.
CBP is in the process of setting up a second investigations branch in its forced labor division, putting to use additional forced labor funding budgeted by Congress for 2021, said Therese Randazzo, director of the agency’s forced labor division, during CBP’s Virtual Trade Week on July 21.
The 21st Century Customs Framework task force is looking at changes to CBP’s entry statute and legal provisions on administrative exemptions that would support a reimagined entry process that could bring unprecedented benefits for both enforcement and trade facilitation, agency officials said, speaking during the CBP’s Virtual Trade Week on July 20.
Accumulation of production costs from non-originating intermediate goods is allowed under USMCA for regional value content calculations, just like it was under NAFTA, CBP said. In a recently released ruling requested by Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA), CBP found the commercial vehicle manufacturer can add a tier two supplier’s costs of processing within USMCA territory to the USMCA costs of its tier one water pump supplier, even though the tier two costs were not sufficient to result in an originating material.
The FDA looks set to deprioritize its sampling and inspection activities for imported foods covered by systems recognition arrangements (SRA) between the FDA and foreign food safety authorities, according to a draft guidance document released by the agency July 9. Foreign food facilities would see fewer establishment inspections, and the FDA would adjust its screening and targeting criteria, import sampling and Foreign Supplier Verification Program inspections to account for SRAs, it said.
The International Trade Commission posted Revision 5 to the 2021 Harmonized Tariff Schedule. The semiannual update to the HTS removes General Note 12 for NAFTA from the tariff schedule, and adds new tariff numbers for a variety of products, including frozen warmwater shrimp, tomatoes, organic berries and high-strength steel. All changes take effect July 1, unless otherwise specified.
The International Trade Commission posted Revision 5 to the 2021 Harmonized Tariff Schedule late on July 2, following resolution of technical issues that had delayed its publication. The semiannual update to the HTS removes General Note 12 for NAFTA from the tariff schedule, and adds new tariff numbers for a variety of products, including frozen warmwater shrimp, tomatoes, organic berries and high-strength steel. All changes take effect July 1, unless otherwise specified.
The recent surge in forced labor enforcement by CBP has been accompanied by a lack of transparency and a “broad and vague” interpretation of the withhold release orders the agency uses to block suspect goods, customs lawyer Robert Stang of Husch Blackwell said during a recent webinar.