U.S. Customs and Border Protection has revised and expanded its 2005 “Guidance for Certificates of Reimbursement” for antidumping (AD) duties in order to provide updated information on protests, the option for paperless filing using ACE, and provide additional information regarding blanket certificates, related parties, deemed liquidations, and certificates for companion countervailing (CV) duties.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) posted the following notices from March 8-14, 2012 (may have to click twice on source documents for proper viewing):
On March 8, 2012, the Fish and Wildlife Service issued a proposed rule to revise the regulations and bring them in line with CITES decisions. Proposed revisions include revised definitions for coral, cultivar, and sturgeon caviar; revised labeling and tagging for elephant ivory, vicuna, fur, and sturgeon caviar; processing changes for CITES documents, changes to how some CITES specimens may be used after import, etc. Comments are due by April 9, 2012.
On March 13, 2012, President Obama signed H.R. 4105 into law, amending 19 USC 1671 so that the countervailing duties on non-market economy (NME) countries, such as China and Vietnam, can continue to apply and adjustments of antidumping margins for double counting can be made. These changes were needed in light of certain court and WTO rulings.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said an FCC order’s “unintended consequences” could make some emergency alert system messages originated in a FEMA-designed format useless. The agency petitioned the commission to revisit a January order (CD Jan 12 p8) on the new Common Alerting Protocol format to reverse its ban on text-to-speech EAS warnings. By not allowing such warnings where government agencies originating alerts send scripts of the warnings without also transmitting audio, some transmissions may not go through at all and others may only have warning tones and no actual message, the petition said. “No EAS Participants transmit the full detail alert message and the public is left to make life saving decisions based upon a 90-character” alert from participating wireless carriers “alone,” under one scenario.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a document on the trade benefits from the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). ACE is the commercial trade processing system being developed to become the "single window" through which international traders will electronically provide all information needed by federal agencies for the import of cargo. CBP states that the benefits of ACE continue to grow as new capabilities are developed and deployed. The document lists the trade benefits based on functionality currently available in ACE and are organized by trade sector in addition to, in some cases, ACE Portal role.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for March 5 - March 9, 2012 in case they were missed last week.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced that the United States has requested consultations with China at the World Trade Organization (WTO) concerning China’s export restraints on rare earths, as well as tungsten and molybdenum. USTR states that these materials are key inputs in a multitude of U.S. products and manufacturing sectors, including hybrid car batteries, wind turbines, energy efficient lighting, steel, advanced electronics, automobiles, petroleum, and chemicals.
On March 7, 2012, the Senate passed H.R. 4105 without amendment by unanimous consent. Proponents say the bill will allow the International Trade Administration to continue to apply countervailing duties in cases involving non-market economy nations (NMEs), like China and Vietnam, beyond upcoming court and WTO deadlines. The House of Representatives passed the bill on March 6, 2012. The measure is slated to go to the President on March 8. His signature on the measure will enact it into law.