Brian Feito

Measures of compliance among steel products importers are down since the imposition of sections 301 and 232 tariffs, said the American Institute for International Steel’s Customs Committee in its 2018 year-end report. CBP told the trade association that compliance measured by the letter of the law for imports in Harmonized Tariff Schedule chapters 72 and 73 was down to 96.46 percent in fiscal year 2018, and down to 97.8 percent when measured by major trade discrepancies, CBP told AIIS, the report said. “Issues with Section 232 and Section 301 entries presumably contributed to the reductions,” the report said.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 7-13:

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 14 issued a pair of decisions requiring Commerce to reconcile its “finished merchandise” exclusion from antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China with recent court decisions that took issue with the agency’s long-standing interpretation that fasteners are invisible for the purposes of the exemption.

Some new tariff provisions in the 2019 edition of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule have already been implemented, despite the ongoing partial federal government shutdown and the resulting lack of any official version published by the International Trade Commission. According to documents recently posted by the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, changes affect classification for infant footwear, aluminum foil and paper, among other products. Extensive changes were also made to units of measure throughout the tariff schedule. On the other hand, changes made by a recent presidential proclamation, including the removal of African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) benefits for Mauritania, have yet to be implemented by CBP, the NCBFAA has said. The following is a summary of the purported changes to the tariff schedule:

An importer is liable for liquidated damages for its failure to redeliver butane canisters that CBP found bore counterfeit Underwriters Laboratory trademarks, the Court of International Trade said in a decision released publicly Jan. 9. ICCS USA said the products had only minor differences from products it had already registered with UL, but the UL contract required new products to be registered even if they bore only superficial differences, CIT said.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 31 - Jan. 6:

The ongoing partial federal government shutdown is causing some confusion for the trade community on tariff classification. CBP’s last tariff update in the Automated Broker Interface came on Dec. 19 (see 1812190004), but the International Trade Commission has not yet issued its annual update to the online Harmonized Tariff Schedule (see 1901020021). Further complicating matters, a presidential proclamation making more changes to the HTS is now set for publication on Jan. 7 (see 1812270038).

The Food and Drug Administration found some 300 violations of Foreign Supplier Verification Program requirements during inspections in fiscal year 2018, making it the most frequently cited food-related issue for the fiscal year, according to FY18 inspection observations posted to the agency website. FDA cited at least 278 importers for failure to develop an FSVP, with another 11 also cited for a similar reason with a different citation code.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 24-30:

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 17-23: