A House subcommittee hearing on the government's implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act zoomed in on de minimis shipments, low incidence of cotton isotopic testing and the slow pace of adding businesses to the UFLPA Entity List, which captures companies that accept labor transfers outside of Xinjiang.
Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., the lead sponsor of the Customs Business Fairness Act, said that although the Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill to which it has been attached (see 2309060049) has not come out of committee, he still thinks language protecting customs brokers when their clients declare bankruptcy could get attached to funding bills in coming months.
The Commerce Department failed to address contradicting that the U.S. industry couldn't timely provide tin mill products when it denied Seneca Foods' requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum duties, the Court of International Trade ruled in an Oct. 18 opinion.
Of more than 5,000 shipments stopped by CBP under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, CBP has finished its analysis on about 4,600. And for nearly half, or 47%, importers were able to prove there was no link to Xinjiang in their supply chains, said Brian Hoxie, director of CBP's forced labor division.
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An automotive telematics device is properly classified as a "measuring or checking instrument" under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9031 and not as a "telephone" under heading 8517, according to a recent ruling by CBP headquarters.
Platinum bushings used in basalt fiber production aren't "machines" as defined by the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, according to a ruling recently released by CBP headquarters.
The EU's top trade official, Valdis Dombrovskis, said EU and U.S. negotiators haven't given up on their Oct. 31 deadline to address both non-market overcapacity in steel and aluminum and ways to privilege trade in cleaner metals.
An "importer" for the purposes of assessing excise taxes must be involved in physically bringing goods into the U.S., the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled. Opining on whether tire wholesaler Texas Truck Parts & Tire was properly assessed excise tax on taxable tires, Judge Charles Eskridge said that since the company didn't arrange any of the transport of the tires from China nor secure their release from a customs-bonded warehouse, it is not an importer.
A nonprofit organization that fights illicit networks that threaten global peace and security, C4ADS, is recommending that the Department of Homeland Security’s interagency Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force should place Xinjiang Nonferrous Metal Industry Group and its subsidiaries on the UFLPA entity list, as the group laid out evidence that the mines use labor transfers of Turkic minorities in Xinjiang province.