Effective June 21, 2005, the International Trade Administration (ITA) is revoking the antidumping (AD) duty order on mechanical transfer presses from Japan as no domestic interested parties participated in the ITA's five-year AD sunset review.
Customs Duty
A Customs Duty is a tariff or tax which a country imposes on goods when they are transported across international borders. Customs Duties are used to protect countries' economies, residents, jobs, and environments, by limiting the flow of imported merchandise, especially restricted and prohibited goods, into the country. The Customs Duty Rate is a percentage determined by the value of the article purchased in the foreign country and not based on quality, size, or weight.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has created a new page on its Website which it states is an overview of the Federal Register notices and Quota Book Transmittals (QBTs) that explain and support the implementation and administration of China textile products and apparel subject to safeguard restraints.
The Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) has issued a notice stating that, effective August 1, 2005, certain textile and apparel goods from Nigeria are eligible for duty-free treatment under the "handloomed, handmade, folklore articles, or ethnic printed fabrics" provision of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
The International Trade Administration (ITA) has initiated an antidumping (AD) duty investigation of metal calendar slides from Japan.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued its weekly quota commodity report as of July 25, 2005. This report includes tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on various products such as beef, tuna, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa powder, tobacco, certain JFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, UAFTA and UCFTA TRQs, etc. This report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, CBTPA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA (CFTA) tariff preference levels (TPLs) for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics, etc. (CBP's weekly quota commodity report, dated 07/25/05, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)
On June 29, 2005, President Bush issued Proclamation 7912 in order to implement certain Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) changes effective July 1, 2005; restore suspended GSP benefits for a number of India or Pakistan articles; grant GSP benefits for the country of Serbia and Montenegro; implement certain North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) rules of origin changes; delineate certain Carribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA) and Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) benefits for footwear; treat certain members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as one country for purposes of GSP, etc.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has issued a report entitled, "African Growth and Opportunity Act Competitiveness Report," which incorporates studies of each of the 37 African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) eligible countries1.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) has published a list of updated quantity-based trigger levels and applicable periods, effective August 14, 2005, for agricultural products which may be subject to additional import duties under the safeguard provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture. FAS also states that beginning this year, the method of determining these triggers has been modified to exclude trade from countries that are not subject to WTO safeguards.
According to Washington Trade Daily, H.R. 3283, which among other things, would have allowed the Commerce Department to impose countervailing duty laws on nonmarket economies such as China, failed to pass the House by the two-thirds majority needed under special suspension of the rules procedures. The article reports that Congressional sources state that H.R. 3283 will be brought up under "regular order" on July 27, 2005. (WTD, dated 07/27/05, www.washingtontradedaily.com )
The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued its final results of the changed circumstances antidumping (AD) duty review of carbon and certain alloy steel wire rod from Trinidad and Tobago.