The U.K. Parliament voted March 13 that the U.K. should not leave the European Union without a deal, paving the way for another vote that could seek to delay that departure beyond the March 29 deadline. Although the vote is not legally binding, it formally signaled Parliament’s opposition to a no-deal Brexit -- the possibility of the U.K. leaving the EU without an agreed framework for cross-border transactions. The measure passed 321-278. A March 14 vote on another amendment on whether to delay Brexit is expected, according to reports.
If the United Kingdom crashes out of the European Union in 17 days, it has a plan on what its tariff schedule will be, but John Dickerman, head of the Washington office of the Confederation of British Industries, said that there's no answer on who will be ready to take the manifest information from exporters the day after Brexit. "That's a huge challenge," he said.
The United Kingdom would temporarily set tariffs at zero for nearly 90 percent of imported goods should it leave the European Union with no transition deal in place, the U.K. Department for International Trade said in a March 13 press release announcing a draft tariff and customs scheme in the run-up to a vote in Parliament on whether to leave with no deal.
The World Customs Organization issued the following release on commercial trade and related matters:
In the March 12 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
The European Union issued a notice in the March 11 Official Journal announcing adjustments to certain tariff-rate quotas for agricultural products that will take effect once the United Kingdom leaves the EU or a negotiated transition period ends. The new regulation also sets provisions on treatment of TRQ import licenses issued by U.K. customs authorities after Brexit, as well as how TRQs that have already opened and been partially used will be apportioned on the day the U.K. leaves.
Recent editions of Mexico's Diario Oficial list trade-related notices as follows:
The new Canadian excise duty rates for spirits, wine, tobacco products and cannabis products take effect April 1, the Canada Revenue Agency recently said in a notice. The rates are adjusted annually.
The Transition Engine Annual Report (TEAR) is due on March 31 for transition engines imported or manufactured during the 2018 calendar year, Environment and Climate Change Canada said in an emailed notice. "The purpose of this notice is to raise awareness amongst customs brokers and their clients (importers of off-road diesel engines)" of the deadline, the agency said. "If you import transition engines or machines containing a transition engine into Canada, or are a Canadian manufacturer of transition engines or machines containing a transition engine, you must submit" a TEAR, the agency said in an attached presentation.
Canada is proposing new regulations for "setting emission standards for off-road engines such as large spark-ignition (LSI) and stationary compression-ignition (SCI) engines," the Department of the Environment said in a March 9 notice. While there are existing regulations aligning emission standards with the U.S. for mobile compression-ignition (MCI) engines, there are no such regulations for LSI and SCI engines, it said. "The proposed Regulations would repeal and replace the current Off-Road Compression-Ignition Engine Emission Regulations (which apply to MCI engines) and introduce new emission standards and requirements in alignment with the U.S. EPA’s standards for LSI and SCI engines," the department said (see 1903080001).