CBP hopes to deploy its Partner Government Agency (PGA) message set in the "spring-summer timeframe," said Brenda Smith, acting director of the ACE business office while speaking at the CBP Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC) meeting on Dec. 4. "We see that very close on the horizon, she said.
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.
The Obama administration changed its mind about its concerns with several proposed miscellaneous tariff bills that would suspend duties on footwear, said a spokeswoman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The USTR now says it only has issues with new duty suspensions and not the 15 bills that would extend previous suspensions. A large number of duty suspensions are scheduled to expire at the end of the year.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted an updated summary of changes for the Automated Export System Trade Interface Requirements (AESTIR). Most recently, the following changes to Appendix O on DDTC ITAR Exemption Codes have been posted.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:
CBP posted a Dec.3 version of its CF 1400 (Record of Vessel in Foreign Trade Entrances) electronic query report of the Vessel Management System (VMS), in accordance with 19 CFR 4.95, organized by entrances. CBP also posted a version of its CF 1401 (Record of Vessel in Foreign Trade Clearances) electronic query report of the VMS, in accordance with 19 CFR 4.95, organized by clearances.
CBP issued its weekly tariff rate quota and tariff preference level commodity report as of Dec. 3. 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.
The International Trade Administration issued the final results of the administrative review of the countervailing duty order on citric acid and certain citrate salts from China ( C-570-938), which sets a CV cash deposit rate of 5.27 percent for the RZBC Companies (RZBC Group Shareholding Co., Ltd / RZBC Co., Ltd. / RZBC Juxian Co., Ltd. / RZBC Imp. & Exp. Co., Ltd.). This rate is effective Dec. 5.
CBP won't "accept any newly-filed continuous or single transaction bonds" for surety 879 (Universal Insurance Company), the agency said in a CSMS message. Universal Insurance Company's authority as an acceptable surety on Federal bonds has been terminated by the Department of the Treasury, it said.
Correction: CBP hasn't had a Senate-confirmed commissioner since 2009. CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin was appointed, but never confirmed.
CBP's planned combination of trusted trade programs, a consolidation of Importer Self Assessment (ISA) and Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), would require members of the combined program to meet ISA criteria, said Michael Ginn, director of CBP's C-TPAT Field Office. Ginn spoke on a panel Nov. 27 at the CBP East Coast Trade Symposium. The goal in combining the programs is to create a singular validation and management approach to the trusted trader program, said Dan Baldwin, CBP executive director for Cargo and Conveyance Security, who spoke on the same panel. “We are taking a more reasoned approach on how to validate a company’s compliance level," said Baldwin. "There is every reason to believe a small company is just as responsible and deserving of our trust as the large corporations.”