U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that it will conduct the next Customs Broker License Examination on Monday, April 2, 2012.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's C-TPAT administrators have issued a message to all C-TPAT partners to clarify a February 2012 notice that announced that a new ISO mechanical seal standard would apply on March 1, 2012. CBP explains that as no accredited independent laboratories have been willing to test a certain element of the ISO seal standard requirements, the new standard cannot be met. CBP is therefore delaying implementation of the new standard until this issue is resolved. However, C-TPAT partners are encouraged to buy seals that comply with another part of the standard that is attainable.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message informing all ACE report users that all ACE reports are now up to date. On February 15, 2012, CBP had announced in CSMS #12-000047 that all Account Management, Authorized Data Extract, Entry Summary, Multi-Modal Manifest, Reference and Transactions reports were not updated. The CSMS further stated that reports should be up to date by February 16 and that a subsequent message would be issued once the data load was completed.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued its February 15, 2012 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 46, No. 8), which contains four notices of ruling actions, as follows:
On February 15, 2012, the Port of Long Beach announced that its container trade volume dropped 3.9 percent overall in January 2012 compared to the same period last year. Imports were down 5.5 percent and exports dipped 8.2 percent. Import volumes at the Port typically pick up leading up to the Chinese New Year (which was on January 23), as U.S. retailers stock up their shelves in anticipation of the holidays in Asia when most factories close down for a week or more. Conversely, exports of raw materials to China slow down. According to the Port, the decline in imports reflects caution in the retail sector.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its TRQ/TPL "threshold to fill" list, a quick reference to monitor TRQs and TPLs that are approaching their restraint limit or have filled their in-quota (low) rate. The list is divided into two sections: those that are at least 85% filled and those that are filled.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Web site as of February 16, 2012, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. These messages are available by searching on the listed CBP message number at http://addcvd.cbp.gov.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued its weekly tariff rate quota and tariff preference level commodity report as of February 13, 2012.
In early January 2012, U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued instructions for the ten weekly Special Import Quota announcements for Upland Cotton that were issued by the USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation. CBP also listed the dates and quantities for each of the ten. In February, CBP added weekly Special Quotas 22 - 25, and now Special Quota 26 has been added to the list. CBP's instructions, with the new quota added, are summarized below. (Note that ITT has corrected the typos in the "buy date" column.)