Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the driving force in the Senate behind the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), is aware that Xinjiang goods -- even those labeled as coming from the state-owned Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which is on the banned entity list -- are entering U.S. commerce.

A group of domestic steel manufacturers doesn't have the right to intervene in a spate of challenges to denied requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a Sept. 8 opinion. Ruling against the Court of International Trade's opinion that the would-be intervenors did not establish standing, Judges Kimberly Moore and Todd Hughes ultimately found that the interveners nevertheless failed to identify a legally protectable interest to qualify as intervenors under the trade court's rules.

When asked what the U.S. wants from China in economic terms, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai borrowed a metaphor from a former assistant U.S. trade representative responsible for trade negotiations between the U.S. and China. She said that he said the trade relationship with China is like two teams showing up to play football, but one is playing American football, and the other is playing what the rest of the world calls football that the U.S. calls soccer.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Sept. 6 opinion said that the Court of International Trade was right to dismiss a suit from two importers seeking to retroactively apply Section 301 tariff exclusions, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction since a protest with CBP was not filed. The trade court held that it did not have jurisdiction under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, since the court would have had jurisdiction under Section 1581(a) had the importers, ARP Materials and Harrison Steel Castings, filed protests with CBP. The Federal Circuit agreed, holding that the true nature of the suit contests CBP's assessment of the duties and not the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's exclusions, necessitating a protest.

Customs brokers don't need to receive duties directly from an importer and can receive funds from a middleman, CBP said in a ruling issued Aug. 25 and released by the agency Sept. 6 (HQ H318461). The decision followed a request from World Customs Brokerage (WCB) for a binding ruling regarding broker relations with unlicensed persons. Both WCB and freight forwarder World Courier, Inc. (WCI) are subsidiaries of AmerisourceBergen Corporation, and WCI often forwards imports to WCB for customs brokerage services and bills and receives payment through WCI.

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.

The lists 1 and 2 Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports didn’t terminate on the fourth anniversaries of their imposition dates, July 6 and Aug. 23, after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative received “numerous requests” from “domestic industries” to keep the duties intact, according to an agency notice late Sept. 2.

The Federal Maritime Commission should issue an emergency order requiring carriers and terminal operators to share more information on cargo availability with shippers and other carriers, more than a dozen motor carriers and logistics companies said. The companies, most of which move freight at the Port of New York and New Jersey, said inadequate information sharing has created an emergency that is hurting their operations and restricting cargo from moving efficiently.

An economist and a former assistant U.S. trade representative for trade policy and economics agreed that rolling back the Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports would be modestly helpful to fight inflation, but that it wouldn't be noticeable to many consumers. Ed Gresser, the former assistant USTR now at the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, said that he thinks the administration's talk that the best way to refine the Trump-era tariffs is to roll back those on consumer goods is misguided. "The effect there has been to shift a lot of purchasing to Vietnam, a little bit to Mexico and a little bit to India," he said, so he doesn't think inflation would change much if those tariffs are dialed back. He said the more inflationary part of the tariffs is the 25% tariffs on industrial inputs.

Amazon's Echo Show smart displays are properly classified as "machines for the reception, conversion and transmission or regeneration of voice, images or other data" under subheading 8517.62.00, rather than as speakers of heading 8518, CBP said in a recently released ruling. In HQ H316742, dated June 3 and released Aug. 30, CBP found heading 8517 better described the principal function of the multifunction Alexa devices.