U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an ABI administrative message announcing the creation of a new Portal Support Center effective June 27, 2005. CBP states that the recommendation for a business help desk to support the growing number of users came from the Trade Support Network (TSN) and the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) accounts. The Portal Support Center will also support truck carriers who want to use the ACE Secure Data Portal to file their electronic truck manifests.
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.
The Senate Finance Committee has posted a notice on its Web site that on June 29, 2005, it favorably reported S. 1307, the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act and S.J. Res. 18, a joint resolution approving the renewal of the import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003. (See ITT's Online Archives or 06/29/05 news, 05062905, for BP summary on the House passage of a joint resolution approving the renewal of import restrictions on Burma.) (Senate Finance notice, dated 06/29/05, available at http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/062905leg.pdf.)
No negligence due to "approving" Customs ruling and "erroneous" Customs ruling. In U.S. v. Washington International Insurance Co. (WIIC), the Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled there was no basis for recovering $540,000 in duties from WIIC, the surety for importer(s) the U.S. had argued were, at minimum, negligent in classifying imported sweaters from Guam.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued its weekly quota commodity report as of June 27, 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 06/27/05, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)
The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) recently issued a notice correcting the 2004 - 2013 staged duty rates for twenty-six 8-digit HTS numbers for originating goods of Chile under the U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement (UCFTA, CFTA).
The International Trade Administration (ITA) has published its antidumping (AD) duty orders on chlorinated isocyanurates from China and Spain. In addition, the International Trade Commission (ITC) has published a final negative critical circumstances determination regarding subject merchandise from China.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an ABI administrative message announcing that its most recent Harmonized System (HS) update (No. 0505) contains:
The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued the final results of its countervailing (CV) duty administrative review of honey from Argentina for the period of January 1, 2003 through December 31, 2003.
In the June 22, 2005 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (CBP Bulletin) (Vol. 39, No. 26), CBP issued notices: (a) proposing to revoke or modify two classification rulings on silymarin (milk thistle) and leucoanthocyanin, and (b) revoking treatment accorded flame cut nonalloy steel circles. CBP states that it is also revoking, or proposing to revoke, any treatment it has previously accorded to substantially identical transactions that are contrary to its position in these notices.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an administrative message regarding the Customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) FC01 input record which states that page OGA-24 (Other Government Agencies) of the CATAIR was changed in Amendment 1 (dated March 2005) to allow for the submission of new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) import condition 5A (the described equipment is a non-U.S. standard cellular phone than can only function outside of the U.S.).