CBP should recognize imports of goods under the $800 de minimis threshold as entries, as a way to help prevent low value goods made with forced labor from coming into the U.S., the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America said in comments to DHS on implementing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. "By treating the commercial de minimis exemption instead as an entry of merchandise, the Government can continue to promote the administrative ease that section 321 affords legitimate gift and personal use shipments, while also ensuring goods imported under the commercial de minimis exemption are eligible and admissible and pose no threat to our country’s economy, safety, health, or security and particularly are free of forced labor," the trade group said.
321 de minimis
De minimis is a policy described in Section 321, 19 USC 1321. It allows the import of articles duty and tax free, provided their aggregate fair retail value does not exceed $800 in the country from which the articles are imported. Additionally, the articles must be imported by only one person on one day. The previous de minimis threshold was $200, but the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act increased it to $800.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hopes to be able to support the House China package, since the trade group supported the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, but said the House bill "continues to include numerous policies that would undermine U.S. competitiveness, and Members are being denied the opportunity to vote on amendments to address these issues." The Chamber said it will push during the conference process to get better bill.
Thirteen groups that represent business interests told House leaders that they strongly oppose the changes to de minimis in the trade title of the America Competes Act, the House answer to the Senate China bill that passed last year.
The AFL-CIO said the House version of the China package "includes critically important fixes" to the Senate's trade title, including removing finished products from the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, changes to antidumping and countervailing duty law, and the change to de minimis, which "would halt China’s exploitation of US de minimis policy."
Foreign-trade zones would continue to lose out to foreign distribution companies under the changes to de minimis proposed in The Import Security and Fairness Act, the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones said in a recent letter to House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who introduced the bill (see 2201180053). A version of that bill, which would no longer end de minimis treatment for goods subject to Section 232 tariffs, among other changes, was included in the America Competes Act (see 2201260029). While NAFTZ sent its letter before the bill was attached to America Competes, "we don’t support either version because neither allows U.S. companies operating in a U.S. FTZ the same ability to leverage Section 321 de minimus as their foreign competitors can and will still be able to do with the current language of the bill," emailed Melissa Irmen, NAFTZ's chair.
The leader of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee focused on making it easier for domestic industry to win antidumping and countervailing duty cases and said that the de minimis statute needs to be altered, in a hearing designed to talk about how Chinese practices damage workers, businesses and the environment.
A panel of CBP officials told members of the trade community that they're still considering how to shape a rulemaking based on what they've learned from the Entry Type 86 test and the Section 321 data pilot, but they expect to require 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule codes on de minimis entries that PGAs have an interest in.
CBP will exempt some filers from the requirement to file a 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading on low value shipments that do not have PGA requirements once it finalizes new data elements for Section 321 shipments, Brandon Lord, acting CBP executive director-trade policy and programs, said at the June 23 meeting of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee.
The Office of Management and Budget should restart consideration of a proposal to end the de minimis exemption for goods subject to Section 301 tariffs, the National Council of Textile Organizations said in an April 14 letter to acting OMB Director Robert Fairweather. The review of the proposal began at OMB last year (see 2009040026) but was removed as part of a broad regulatory freeze after President Joe Biden took office (see 2101210039). OMB should reopen the review and “grant approval to this much needed change in CBP regulations,” NCTO said.
CBP plans to propose some new requirements for importing low-value shipments, Craig Clark of the Office of the Commissioner, Office of Trade Relations, said during the virtual Advisory Committee on Supply Chain Competitiveness (ACSCC) meeting Jan. 28. “We are taking steps to integrate the results of both the [Section] 321 data pilot and the Entry Type 86 test into a new Section 321 data collection process through a notice of proposed rulemaking,” he said. “Included in that NPRM is a requirement for mandatory security data elements for all Section 321 shipments, and that is going to be agnostic to the mode of transportation and will include international mail as well as additional mandatory data elements if an entry is filed,” he said.