International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from May 17-21 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Tim Warren
Timothy Warren is Executive Managing Editor of Communications Daily. He previously led the International Trade Today editorial team from the time it was purchased by Warren Communications News in 2012 through the launch of Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. Tim is a 2005 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and lives in Maryland with his wife and three kids.
CBP announced the calendar year 2021 tariff rate quota for tuna in airtight containers. It said 18,345,004 kilograms of tuna in air-tight containers may be entered and withdrawn from warehouse for consumption during 2021, at the rate of 6% under HTS subheading 1604.14.22. Any such tuna that is entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption during the current calendar year in excess of this quota will be dutiable at the rate of 12.5% under HTS subheading 1604.14.30.
Three rubber gloves makers, an electronics manufacturing company and an event management company, all based in Malaysia, are the subjects of recent petitions to CBP alleging the use of forced labor and are being investigated by the agency, said Andy Hall, a British human rights activist who filed the allegations. Hall said he previously filed an allegation against Top Glove, which is now subject to a CBP finding that forced labor is in its supply chain (see 2103260028) and has had at least two big shipments seized as a result (see 2105120039 and 2105040041).
People or companies that are debarred or suspended by CBP aren't allowed to use a continuous bond for customs activity "unless a continuous bond is the only form of bond acceptable for that activity," CBP said in a May 21 CSMS message. Effective May 11, Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller "revoked the authority of all CBP officials to permit a person who is suspended or debarred by CBP to meet the bond requirements of any customs activity using a continuous bond, for the duration of that person’s suspension or debarment," CBP said. For entities debarred or suspend by other federal agencies, "the Office of Trade, Trade Policy and Programs, is authorized to evaluate and decide, either categorically or on a case-by-case basis," whether the use of a continuous bond is allowed.
A task force made up of government and industry representatives developing legislative language under CBP's 21st Century Customs Framework effort "have signed nondisclosure agreements," said John Leonard, acting executive assistant commissioner for trade, while speaking during a Foreign Trade Association World Trade Week event May 20. That "limits them to a certain extent," though "communications can happen via associations through members back up to the task force, so it's not going to be completely done in a vacuum." The NDAs were necessary "to make this thing actually be able to function in reality and get stuff done before it becomes law," he said.
CBP allowed for the release of some styles of men's shirts imported by Uniqlo that were detained over the suspected use of cotton from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in China because the shirts were not made of cotton, the agency said in a May 18 ruling. The ruling, HQ H318835, discloses that CBP detained a second Uniqlo shipment over a possible XPCC connection. The first detention was mentioned in another recent ruling, in which CBP said Uniqlo hadn't sufficiently shown XPCC cotton wasn't used (see 2105130031). The ruling wasn't available on the CBP rulings database as of press time May 20.
Golf clubs are commonly made with components from multiple countries of origin and may be subject to additional tariffs, depending on the origin, CBP said in a May 18 CSMS message. That is why importers of completed golf clubs are required to include origin information for each component, it said.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from May 10-14 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
CBP is now using audits in some cases to make sure e-commerce importers are compliant with the regulations, John Leonard, acting executive assistant commissioner for trade, said while speaking during a Coalition of New England Companies for Trade conference May 13. “We have begun to utilize them in the small package space, but it's baby steps,” he said. Many of the “stakeholders are not traditional importers that will have a normal set of auditable books and records that we're used to with larger entities.”
Efforts by Uniqlo to prove that no connection exists between a shipment of men's shirts and cotton from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in China were insufficient, CBP said in a May 10 ruling. CBP stopped a shipment at the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach in January, about a month after the agency issued a withhold release order on all cotton products made by XPCC (see 2012020071).