The United Kingdom’s Department for International Trade on Jan. 30 released a guidance on trading with developing nations during the Brexit transition period. The guidance contains details on the U.K.’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences during and after the transition period.
The United Kingdom’s Department for International Trade released on Jan. 29 a notice to importers about the current range of European Union measures in force on steel. The guidance includes information on EU legislation during and after the Brexit transition period, including EU definitive safeguard measures on steel, EU tariff-rate quota review findings, EU antidumping and anti-subsidy measures in place against steel and aluminum and EU countermeasures against U.S. steel and aluminum tariff increases. The guidance also includes an annex containing product categories that are subject to safeguards.
The European Council issued guidance and background on the United Kingdom’s decision to withdraw from the European Union as the U.K. enters the Brexit transition period Jan. 31, according to a Jan. 30 notice. The guidance includes information on the transition period, copies of the draft agreement on the withdrawal, a revised political declaration on the future relationship between the U.K. and the EU, and further background information on Brexit.
India’s Gujarat High Court ruled that no Goods and Services Tax can be imposed on ocean freight transportation regarding transport services provided by a person outside India who imports goods into the country, according to a Jan. 29 KPMG post. The court ruled on a case in which a taxpayer imported coal into India from “various countries” and paid customs duties on the value of the coal and the ocean freight transportation costs, the post said. The taxpayer was also required to pay “integrated GST” on the ocean freight, leading to “double taxation” on the freight. The court ruled that the GST “with regard to the transport services” could not be imposed.
Eliminating Thailand's eligibility for the Generalized System of Preferences program, because of a complaint from pork producers, would hurt U.S. importers more than Thai businesses, one witness said, and would be unlikely to convince the country to allow pigs fed with ractopamine to be imported. China and the European Union also ban meat that was fed the growth-enhancing drug. Dan Anthony, testifying on behalf of the GSP Action Committee, told the panel of government officials that they should put great weight on the potential harm to U.S. importers as they make their decision. He gave the example of a 25-person company that imports from Thailand, and had to pay $60,000 to $70,000 a month in tariffs during the two years GSP was not in force. Once it was renewed, the North Carolina company hired 17 full-time employees, and today, employs 70 people.
A Washington state resident and Bosnia citizen was sentenced to 85 months in prison for violating the Arms Export Control Act and other weapons possession charges, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a Jan. 28 press release. Hany Veletanlic sold firearms on eBay, the press release said, and was involved in 20 separate exports to two “customer groups” in Sweden. He also exported firearm parts to customers in France, Russia and Brazil.
The U.S. sanctioned the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and AEOI Chief Officer Ali Akbar Salehi, Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said during a Jan. 30 press conference. Hook said the AEOI “played a key role in Iran breaching its nuclear commitments” under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and Salehi “personally inaugurated the installation of new, advanced centrifuges to expand its uranium enrichment capacity.” The AEOI was designated by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in 2018.
The State Department sanctioned 13 former Salvadoran military officials due to human rights violations, the agency said in a Jan. 29 press release. The former officials were involved in the “extrajudicial killings” of people taking refuge in a Jesuit pastoral center at a university in El Salvador in 1989. The people are: Juan Rafael Bustillo, Juan Orlando Zepeda, Inocente Orlando Montano Morales, Francisco Elena Fuentes, Guillermo Alfredo Benavides Moreno, Yusshy René Mendoza Vallecillos, José Ricardo Espinoza Guerra, Gonzalo Guevara Cerritos, Carlos Camilo Hernández Barahona, Oscar Mariano Amaya Grimaldi, Antonio Ramiro Avalos Vargas, Angel Pérez Vásquez and José Alberto Sierra Ascencio.
The many complicated “provisions” for implementing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on free trade plausibly means July 1 is the “absolute earliest” date it can “enter into force,” Nicole Bivens Collinson, international trade expert with Sandler, Travis, told a Sports & Fitness Industry Association webinar Jan. 29. President Donald Trump signed USMCA’s enabling legislation into law on Jan. 29 (see 2001290035), saying the agreement “contains critical protections for intellectual property, including trade secrets, digital services and financial services.”
The first humanitarian exports were sent through the joint mechanism created by the Treasury and State departments nearly three months after the channel was created (see 1910250057), Treasury said Jan. 30. Treasury said the mechanism successfully facilitated transactions from a “humanitarian channel” in Switzerland that sent cancer and transplant-related drugs to Iranian medical patients. The channel is subject to “strict due diligence measures,” Treasury said, adding that the successful transactions prove “a model for facilitating further humanitarian exports to Iran.”