CBP provided a broad outline of the agency's goals for progress on the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). The agency will be especially focused on Automated Corrections/Deletions; the Partner Government Agency (PGA) Message Set; and the first phase of Initial Entry Summary edits.
Tim Warren
Timothy Warren is Executive Managing Editor of Communications Daily. He previously led the International Trade Today editorial team from the time it was purchased by Warren Communications News in 2012 through the launch of Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. Tim is a 2005 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and lives in Maryland with his wife and three kids.
CBP released its Jan. 30 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 47, No. 6). While the Bulletin does not contain any ruling articles, it does include recent general notices and Court of International Trade decisions and a draft agenda for the World Customs Organization's Harmonized System Committee.
CBP posted some new documents to its Office of Congressional Affairs website. The agency posted a fact sheet describing the organization, personnel and contact information for that office. The fact sheet is (here). It also posted instructions for Congressional members passing along constituent issues. That document is (here).
An update to the widely disparate customs regulations in the U.S. and abroad would make for significant cost savings, even more so than the relaxation of tariffs, said panelists Jan. 31 who spoke at an event on reducing supply chain barriers. The event, hosted by the Washington International Trade Association, focused on the findings of a recent World Bank report that said the lowering of supply chain barriers would be of a greater benefit to international trade than tariff removal alone. The World Bank report is available (here).
In the Jan. 30 issue of the CBP Bulletin (Vol. 47, No. 6), CBP issued a notice detailing the dates and draft agenda for the 50th Session of the World Customs Organization's Harmonized System Committee, which will meet in Brussels on March 6-15.
CBP issued its weekly tariff rate quota and tariff preference level commodity report as of Jan. 29. This report includes TRQs on various products such as beef, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa products, and tobacco; and certain BFTA, DR-CAFTA, Israel FTA, JFTA, MFTA, OFTA, SFTA, UAFTA (AFTA) and UCFTA (Chile FTA) non-textile TRQs etc. Each report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, BFTA, DR-CAFTA, CBTPA, Haitian HOPE, MFTA, NAFTA, OFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA TPLs and TRQs for qualifying textile articles and/or other articles; the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics, etc.
CBP posted updated details on how to apply to participate in its reconciliation prototype and the necessary requirements for providing a copy of a reconciliation rider to continuous bond. The agency said if a Reconciliation "participant changes their continuous bond, copies of the replacement continuous bond, as well as a copy of the new bond rider need to be provided to the HQ Reconciliation team" and that "CBP has advised that failure to provide the Reconciliation rider may lead to insufficiency of the continuous importer bond." CBP said it would immediately render any continuous importer bond insufficient when that bond is being used in conjunction with Reconciliation entries but the required Reconciliation rider has not been provided to CBP.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:
On Jan. 29, the following trade-related bills and resolutions were introduced:
CBP provided a list of various Trade Transformation goals the agency is working toward in 2013. The list was part of a CBP document outlining the agencies 2012 accomplishments on Trade Transformation.