Brian Feito

CBP issued a CSMS message Nov. 2 detailing changes to eligibility for Generalized System of Preferences duty benefits as a result of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s 2020 GSP review. Effective Nov. 1, fresh-cut roses are newly eligible for GSP, while par-boiled rice is no longer eligible for duty-free treatment under the program. USTR also declared six county-product pairs ineligible for exceeding competitive needs limitations (CNLs), and will allow 24 country-product pairs that exceeded CNLs to remain eligible under de minimis waivers.

Weighted blankets that are filled with glass beads for additional heft are classifiable as blankets, not as quilts, in the tariff schedule, CBP said in an Oct. 5 ruling. As imported by Franco Manufacturing, the weighted blankets aren’t sized to fit standard mattresses, as are quilts that are used as bedspreads, and the quilts are generally filled with soft materials, rather than hard materials like glass beads, CBP said in HQ H305101.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service is adopting as final an overhaul of its regulations on eggs and egg products, including provisions on imports. Many of the changes align the FSIS egg product regulations with current requirements for meat and poultry, FSIS said. Egg product processing plants will now have to implement Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) systems and sanitation standard operating procedures (SOP). The proposed rule also streamlines egg product labeling regulations, and adds new provisions on imports, including on marking, procedures for imports refused entry and re-importation of egg products returned from foreign countries.

CBP’s forced labor operations are being undermined by staff shortages that have resulted in investigations being suspended or not conducted at all, as well as a failure by CBP to conduct reviews of withhold release orders unless prodded by importers, the Government Accountability Office said in a report issued Oct. 27.

CBP issued a CSMS message Oct. 26 announcing changes to the tariff schedule to implement a recent proclamation amending safeguard duties on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, including the elimination of an exemption for bifacial panels (see 2010130028). The announcement came despite a last-minute court order blocking the proclamation’s withdrawal of the bifacial panel exclusion. The CSMS message does not mention the court order. A CBP spokesperson said the agency "is in the process of issuing additional guidance on this subject." The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Justice Department didn’t comment.

FDA will continue conducting remote inspections of importers for Foreign Supplier Verification Program compliance in fiscal year 2021, Nancy Saxenian-Emmons, an FDA supervisory consumer safety officer who leads the agency’s West Coast FSVP inspection program, said during a remote session of the Western Cargo Conference on Oct. 22.

FDA recently announced the creation of its online system for U.S. agents of registered food facilities. The agency’s U.S. Agent Voluntary Identification System, unveiled in a guidance document issued Oct. 16, will allow U.S. agents to identify the facilities for which they agree to serve as agents, and streamline the U.S. agent verification process for food facility registration.

The FDA mistakenly added three foreign companies to Import Alert 99-41 recently for violations of Foreign Supplier Verification Program requirements, an agency spokesperson said. The additions were in error, and the agency is “taking steps to ensure future listings adhere to the intent of the import alert, which is to address an importer’s lack of compliance with the FSVP regulation,” the spokesperson said by email on Oct. 21.

A steel importer will receive refunds of Section 232 tariffs under a settlement that resolves its legal challenge of denied exclusion requests. Approved Oct. 15 by the Court of International Trade, the settlement directs CBP to reliquidate some entries covered by exclusions Borusan Mannesman Pipe U.S. had alleged were improperly denied by the Commerce Department. The government did not admit liability under the settlement.

An importer’s handwritten corrections on a 1520(d) post-importation claim for U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) treatments were sufficient, and the Apparel, Footwear & Textiles Center of Excellence and Expertise should not have denied the claim and required submission of a new certificate of origin, CBP headquarters said in a ruling released in early October.