The U.S. pork industry expects phase one of the U.S.-China trade deal to be a boon to pork exporters, although the industry has not been told exactly how much they will benefit, the National Pork Producers Council said. “The administration hasn't been sharing the details,” Nick Giordano, the NPPC’s vice president of global government affairs, said during a Dec. 18 call with reporters. “But our understanding is that it’s going to be very good for us.”

In recent editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

The European Union’s Directorate General for Taxation and Customs Union recently posted version 5.1 of the European Customs Data Model to its website, it said in a Dec. 16 press release. The new version includes recent changes for goods subject to antidumping or countervailing duties that are transported to artificial islands, fixed or floating installations directly from outside the EU, the release said.

The Canada Border Services Agency will make the changes from the Electronic Commerce Client Requirements Document addendum (see 1910040050) available in the testing environment on Dec. 18, the agency said in a Dec. 17 email. “The changes will be available in the CBSA’s Production environment by the end of January 2020,” it said. “The official production date will be communicated by the CBSA’s Technical Commercial Client Unit as soon as a date has been confirmed.”

China plans to issue tariff exemptions to importers of U.S. agricultural goods on a “more regular basis” after the phase one U.S.-China trade deal was reached, according to a Dec. 17 report from Bloomberg News. China announced earlier this month it would be issuing tariff waivers for soybeans and pork (see 1912060033), which are now expected to be “handed out more frequently,” the report said. The move will “make it less punitive” for Chinese importers to buy from U.S. agricultural exports to help fulfill China’s obligations under the phase one deal, Bloomberg said.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control released a quarterly report on licensing activities related to exports of agricultural goods, medicine and medical devices to Iran and Sudan from October to December 2018, OFAC said in a Dec. 17 notice. The report contains information on 36 of the licenses, including statistics on how many were approved or denied.

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security issued a correction for end-user information in the Code of Federal Regulations, in a notice in the Federal Register. The notice corrects an entry for Ibrahim Haqqani under Afghanistan.

The owner of a U.S. freight forwarding company pleaded guilty to trafficking in exotic birds after an attempt to illegally export 86 birds, including three falsely labeled macaws, from California to Taiwan, the Justice Department said in a Dec. 16 press release. Paul Tallman, owner of Aerotyme-Inc., worked with William McGinness to ship the birds from New Orleans to California and eventually to Taiwan, the press release said, which would have violated the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The scheme also would have violated a 2015 Taiwanese ban on imports of California birds due to the risk of “highly pathogenic avian flu.”

An Indonesian citizen and three Indonesian companies were charged after violating U.S. export laws and sanctions against Iran, the Justice Department said in a Dec. 17 press release. Sunarko Kuntjoro and three companies -- PT MS Aero Support (PTMS), PT Kandiyasa Energi Utama (PTKEU), and PT Antasena Kreasi (PTAK) -- illegally exported U.S.-origin goods and technology to sanctioned Mahan Air, an Iranian airline, the press release said. The exports violated the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, the Export Administration Regulations and the Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations.

A bipartisan resolution supporting the administration's desire to get reforms to the World Trade Organization, but also urging that the Geneva delegation work with other countries, passed the House Ways and Means Committee on Dec. 17. Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., a leader on free trade in the Democratic caucus, co-authored the bill. He told fellow committee members that he is talking to the Senate to see if they will raise a similar resolution.