The following Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and Court of International Trade cases on international trade issues were dated/decided during March 3 - March 19, 2008:
Harmonized Tariff Schedule
The Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) is a reference manual that provides duty rates for almost every item that exists. It is a system of classifying and taxing all goods imported into the United States. The HTS is based on the international Harmonized System, which is a global standard for naming and describing trade products, and consists of a hierarchical structure that assigns a specific code and rate to each type of merchandise for duty, quota, and statistical purposes. The HTS was made effective on January 1, 1989, replacing the former Tariff Schedules of the United States. It is maintained by the U.S. International Trade Commission, but the Customs and Border Protection of the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for interpreting and enforcing the HTS.
On December 20, 2007, President Bush issued Proclamation 8213 in order to amend the Harmonized Tariff Schedule General Note 29(n) origin rules for certain Dominican Republic-Central America-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) apparel1.
Chicago and Cleveland CBP have issued Pipelines stating that Census has announced that its Automated Foreign Trade Zone Reporting Program for FTZ operators will be discontinued on April 1, 2008, as it has determined that the electronic CBP Form 214 (e-214) meets its statistical standards. Census sources state that operators seeking an extension of the April 1, 2008 deadline should contact the Census Bureau. (Chicago Pipeline 08-12, dated 03/07/08 and Cleveland Pipeline 08-050, dated 01/11/08, available by emailing documents@brokerpower.com.)
At the request of the U.S. Trade Representative, the International Trade Commission has instituted a Section 332 investigation entitled "Certain Vegetables and Grape Juice: Probable Economic Effect of Accelerated Tariff Elimination for Certain Goods of Chile."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a memo providing proration and liquidation instructions for the 2008 in-quota (low duty) tariff-rate quota quantity for tuna and skipjack (tuna), in airtight containers, not in oil, weighing with their contents not over 7 kilograms each, that is not the product of any U.S. insular possession.
The Office of Textiles and Apparel has posted its monthly monitoring data for certain apparel products imported from Vietnam for January 2008.
The following Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and Court of International Trade cases on international trade issues were dated/decided during February 25 - March 3, 2008:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted five informed compliance publications to its Web site that were reviewed in January or February 2008, four of which were reviewed with no changes.
On February 27, 2008, the House of Representatives amended and passed H.R. 5264 in order to extend the Andean Trade Preference Act, as amended by the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPA/ATPDEA) to December 31, 2008 (from February 29, 2008).
The following are the trade-related bills that were introduced in the House or Senate during the week of January 14-25, 2008: