The State Department approved a potential $2.53 billion military sale to Romania, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Nov. 9. The sale includes M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tanks” and related equipment, and the principal contractors will be General Dynamics Land Systems, BAE Systems, Leonardo DRS, Honeywell Aerospace, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, L3 Harris, American Apex Corp., Allison Transmissions, Pearson Engineering, Amentum, CAE, Palomar, Boeing, Fibrotex and US Ordnance.

The Southern Shrimp Alliance hailed a recently introduced bipartisan bill that would require cargo imported by air or land to be covered by publicly accessible manifests, just as is cargo that comes over the oceans (see 2311030022).

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden and the top Republican on the panel, Sen. Mike Crapo, are asking CBP to explain how it uses AI in both trade enforcement and trade facilitation, with detailed questions on where it's used, how it's validated and whether the agency allows importers and exporters to challenge a decision that is based on AI.

CBP abused its discretion by ignoring explicit antidumping and countervailing duty scope language when it found that importer and AD/CVD petitioner Pitts Enterprises evaded the AD/CVD orders on chassis and subassemblies thereof from China, Pitts argued in a Nov. 6 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The importer admitted to integrating Chinese axle and landing gear leg components into finished chassis shipments, which were finished in Vietnam, but it said individual Chinese components were "explicitly removed from the scope" (Pitts Enterprises v. U.S., CIT # 23-00234).

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Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., introduced a bill that would require public disclosure of air cargo, truck and rail manifests, not just ocean shipments. Manifests usually include the name and address of the shipper, a cargo description, number of packages and gross weight, name of the carrier, port of exit, destination port and country destination.

The Commerce Department correctly stuck by its benchmark picks for the land program and the aluminum plate, sheet and strip program in a lawsuit on the 2016-17 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on aluminum foil from China, DOJ said in its Oct. 31 remand comments at the Court of International Trade (Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials Co. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00133).

Even though there still are nearly two years left in the African Growth and Opportunity Act, companies that source from Africa and the countries who use AGOA tariff breaks are pushing Congress to renew the program long before the Sept. 30, 2025, deadline.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Mustafa Kasubhai for Oregon in Eugene denied plaintiff AT&T’s motion for summary judgment against Lane County, Oregon, but granted the county’s motion for summary judgment against AT&T, said the judge’s signed opinion and order Wednesday (docket 6:22-cv-01635). In dismissing AT&T’s case, the judge held that the carrier failed to exhaust its remedies under Oregon’s administrative land use process.

The co-chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China called on DHS to report on actions it has taken to address forced labor in seafood supply chains, noting that the agency already had been informed of the contents of a recent article detailing forced labor in Chinese seafood processing operations before it was published.