Tim Warren

The U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement for how to remediate labor issues at a General Motors factory in Silao, Mexico, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a July 8 news release. The remediation plan is a result of the first use of “rapid response” provisions for addressing labor issues under USMCA (see 2105120007), the agency said in another release. “Reaching an agreement with Mexico on a remediation plan shows the USMCA’s potential to protect workers’ rights and the benefits of a worker-centered trade policy,” Tai said. “Fully implementing and enforcing the USMCA not only helps workers there, it also helps American workers by preventing trade from becoming a race to the bottom. Our agreements must be more than words on a page, and the United States will use every avenue to protect workers and ensure that Americans compete on a level playing field.”

A selling agent working as intermediary between European wineries and U.S. wine wholesalers has enough of a financial interest to be the importer of record, CBP said in a June 30 ruling. Quality Brand Imports requested a ruling from CBP on whether it is able to serve as the IOR even though it never acts as a buyer or takes ownership of the goods, acting only as a facilitator.in the import and sales process.

A CBP proposal to expand the use of Part 102 marking rules to determine the country of origin for non-preferential claims (see 2107010045) could be controversial, law firm Neville Peterson said in a July 6 blog post. The proposal to use tariff shift rules of Part 102 “would preclude the use of the traditional 'substantial transformation' test of a change in name, character or use,” it said.

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from June 28 - July 2 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

New regulations issued by CBP that implement USMCA provisions took effect on July 1, the agency said in a notice released the same day. The interim final rule implements USMCA language on import and export requirements, "general verifications and determinations of origin, commercial samples, goods re-entered after repair or alteration in Canada or Mexico, and penalties," among other things, CBP said.

The ongoing northern border travel ban seems to be leading to a growth in drug seizures found within cargo shipments, said Manuel Garza, Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program director in CBP's Office of Field Operations. “On a normal given year, I could probably count five seizures on the northern border with drugs,” he told the American Association of Exporters and Importers conference June 29. “This past year during COVID, we're probably up to 100, if not more than that,” he said.

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from June 21-25 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

CBP detained 636 shipments between Oct. 1, 2020, and June 15, 2021, due to the possible use of forced labor on the goods, the agency said in recently updated trade statistics. That marks an increase of 265 stopped shipments from the previous release of statistics, when CBP said it detained 371 shipments between Oct. 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021 (see 2104160010). The total value of the detained shipments for this fiscal year so far is about $86 million, it said.

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from June 14-18 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

CBP posted multiple documents ahead of the June 23 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) meeting: