The Federal Maritime Commission will discuss licensing and financial responsibility requirements for ocean transportation intermediaries during a May 1 meeting, the FMC said in a notice. Also on the agenda are ocean carrier alliances and two terminal agreements.

Unresolved negotiations between the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) threatens to stop cargo movement if an impasse continues, the Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association said in an April 22 letter to Patricia Hajdu, Canada's Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour. "A work stoppage at the west coast ports will cause a major disruption on supply chains," the group said. "In some cases, customers will be lost permanently due to rerouting cargo through the west coast ports in the United States. Today we are writing to underline the potentially catastrophic impacts to Canada’s trade, to our ports and to our economy of the current labour negotiations between the BCMEA/ILWU and to urge the Government of Canada to take any necessary action to keep the ports operating." The previous agreement expired over a year ago and as of April 22, "we understand that a settlement does not appear imminent," the group said.

In the April 26 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

The Canada Border Services Agency updated Memorandum D19-6-3 on importing energy-using goods to add some new product requirements. The memo was updated to reflect an amendment that "as of April 30, 2019, adds import reporting requirements for the following new products: battery chargers, commercial pre-rinse spray valves, metal halide lamp ballasts, microwave-ovens, small electric motors, walk-in coolers, walk-in freezers, and whole-home dehumidifiers," the CBSA said. Natural Resources Canada released an updated list of the affected Harmonized System codes in March (see 1903250036). The CBSA also said in an April 25 email that it updated the Single Window Initiative (SWI) Integrated Import Declaration (IID) Regulated Commodities Data Element Matching Criteria. The memo was also updated to account for the amendment that "as of November 1, 2018, removes import-reporting requirements for external power supplies, electric motors and fluorescent lamp ballasts, when they are imported as a component of another end-use product."

New Chinese electric bike standards took effect April 15, according to a notice from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, and will impact the production, sale and use of the bikes. The announcement, made by China’s State Administration for Market Regulation, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Ministry of Public Security, strengthens the China Compulsory Certification (CCC) system as applied to e-bikes, the notice said. The changes will ensure that “no restrictions are imposed on the sale of imported CCC-compliant e-bikes,” according to the notice. The changes will also improve oversight “of the relevant certification bodies and production enterprises” to ensure bikes meet the country’s standards and that “non-compliant” bikes are not sold, the notice said. The changes also dictate the “destruction” of all non-CCC-compliant e-bikes.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, speaking in Beijing to a group of 5,000, including 37 countries' prime ministers, presidents and vice presidents, said that China will continue to reform its economy in a number of ways, and that it intends to increase imports of good and services. According to an official English translation of the April 26 speech, Xi said, "China is both a global factory and a global market. With the world's largest and fastest growing middle-income population, China has a vast potential for increasing consumption. To meet our people's ever-growing material and cultural needs and give our consumers more choices and benefits, we will further lower tariffs and remove various non-tariff barriers."

Rep. Vern Buchanan, the Florida Republican who's ranking member of the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, is co-sponsoring a bill that would impose sanctions on companies that make and send fentanyl to the U.S. Buchanan, joined by Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., introduced the bill April 10. The bill, H.R. 2226, notes that the Treasury Department used the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act to sanction a synthetic opioid trafficker in April 2018, but says "precision economic and financial sanctions policy tools are needed to address the flow of synthetic opioids." The bill is a companion to a bipartisan Senate bill introduced earlier in the month by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. (see 1904040028). It would require the administration to publicly identify the companies that are selling fentanyl to dealers, bar imports of any kind from those companies, freeze their assets, deny visas to its officials and cut them off from the U.S. banking system. Congress would dedicate $600 million for investigations to uncover which companies are responsible.

A bipartisan bill that would prohibit importation, exportation and interstate trade of bear viscera or products advertised as containing bear viscera was introduced in the House of Representatives on April 10. Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.; Rodney Davis, R-Ill.; Ann Kuster, D-N.H.; and Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., co-sponsored H.R. 2264. The Bear Protection Act of 2019 says, "thousands of bears in Asia are cruelly confined in small cages to be milked for their bile, and the wild Asian bear population has declined significantly in recent years, as a result of habitat loss and poaching due to a strong demand for bear viscera used in traditional medicines and cosmetics." It also said that while most American black bear populations are stable or increasing, some bears have been poached for their viscera, and if that commercial trade grew, it could threaten American bear populations.

Automated Export System Electronic Export Information filers should take steps to verify the correct port of export code, the Census Bureau said in a blog post. "First, verify the port of export code that you are reporting in the AES is valid for the mode of transportation of your shipment," the agency said. "Appendix D of the Automated Export System Trade Interface Requirements (AESTIR) on the CBP’s website is an important resource, and it provides a full list of export port codes as well as valid modes of transportation for each port." It's also considered a "best practice to contact the carrier of your shipment and verify the port of export information." Fatal errors can be resolved by correcting and retransmitting the export filing, it said.

The Automated Export System Trade Interface Requirements was updated to reflect the State Department's changes involving International Traffic in Arms Regulations for U.S. government transfers (see 1904180024), CBP said in a CSMS message.