The Agricultural Marketing Service on Jan. 18 released a final rule requiring submission in ACE of National Organic Program organic certificates for all organic products entering the U.S. as part of the entry process. The agency’s sprawling final rule also sets requirements for organic certifiers, recognition of foreign organic certifications, labeling requirements and the calculation of organic content of multi-ingredient products, among other things.
Regulatory agencies with a hand in trade included relatively few new trade-related rulemakings in their regulatory agendas for fall 2022. While the Commerce Department did include one new rule related to its antidumping and countervailing duty procedures, FDA, USDA and other partner government agencies (PGAs) largely continued to list rules that had been listed in previous agendas but not yet published.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Senate Finance Committee member Bill Cassidy, R-La., wants the government to greatly expand its tariff liberalization, to cover many South American and Central American countries and to cover goods made in factories that moved from China to the Western Hemisphere.
A trade lawyer who has clients in the auto industry says that Mexico's and Canada's auto rules of origin arbitration win does not necessarily change sourcing and investment decisions, because automakers were already proceeding as if 100% of originating parts' value would be counted when calculating the regional value content of vehicles.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., joined by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., has proposed that most countries in Central and South America should be invited to join USMCA, and that before that can be negotiated, the countries should be added to the Caribbean Basin Trade Preference Area.
The Federal Maritime Commission published its fall 2022 regulatory agenda, including mentions of several rules surrounding carrier practices, billing requirements and discriminatory shipping practices that it had hoped to issue in December. At least one of the rules was governed by a statutory deadline set for last month under the Ocean Shipping Reform Act.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Additional funding for forced labor enforcement included in the recently enacted omnibus federal spending bill is a “truly transformative sum,” supporting sizable increases in CBP personnel and advances in the technology the agency uses to support its forced labor efforts, customs lawyer John Foote said in a Jan. 6 blog post.
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 9 opinion denied the New Zealand government's bid to delay a preliminary injunction barring the import of certain fish taken from New Zealand's West Coast North Island multispecies set-net and trawl fisheries into the U.S. The New Zealand government requested the temporary stay of the PI to set up a traceability system that would help the govenrment identify the fish subject to the injunction. Judge Gary Katzmann said that the need to set up this system does not constitute a changed circumstance that would permit the modification of the PI.