CBP has released its Feb. 21 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 58, No. 07), which includes the following ruling actions:
CBP sent a questionnaire earlier this month to solar companies asking how they're guarding against the use of forced labor in their supply chains. The agency asked about the origins of solar modules, panels and related products, according to a draft of the survey obtained by Bloomberg. CBP wants invoices and other documents from distributors, wholesalers, exporters and resellers, as well as organizational charts and locations of production facilities.
CBP plans in FY 2024 to test the ability of ACE 2.0 to issue credentials, verify the origin of the credentials, and send data to partner government agencies through "tech demos" focused on e-commerce, food safety and natural gas trade using "global interoperability standards," the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee said. The COAC, in an ACE 2.0 Working Group issue paper on Feb. 26, said that in September CBP successfully tested global verifiable credentials and decentralized identifier standards with demos of steel and pipeline oil trade (see 2309130025).
Allowing large numbers of electric vehicles from Chinese companies assembled in Mexico would be an "extinction event," warned the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a nonprofit co-founded by large domestic manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union.
The Treasury Department posted new FAQs to its website on recently announced, additional bans on imports of diamonds from Russia (see 2402080081). One FAQ details a ban on imports of diamond jewelry and unsorted diamonds that originate or were exported from Russia that will take effect March 1. Another FAQ includes information on bans of non-industrial diamonds mined or produced in Russia that have been substantially transformed in other countries. That ban takes effect March 1 for diamonds with a weight of one carat or more, and Sept. 1 for smaller diamonds of 0.5 carat or more. A third FAQ details the actions Treasury has taken since 2022 to restrict imports of diamonds from Russia.
EPA will give importers and manufacturers additional time to submit reports on polymers manufactured under an exemption from the Toxic Substances Control Act. The agency is extending the deadline to March 31, after technical difficulties affected a switch to electronic submission procedures, giving importers and manufacturers only days to submit reports prior to the original Jan. 31 deadline. The extension will “allow manufacturers additional time to submit their reports and accompanying claims to EPA using the electronic reporting tool,” the agency said.
CBP announced an Enforce and Protect Act investigation on whether Shari Pharmachem USA evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on glycine from China. The agency said it found reasonable suspicion existed that the importers had transshipped Chinese-origin xanthan gum through India, necessitating the imposition of interim measures.
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Georgia woman Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois filed suit at the Court of International Trade Feb. 16 to contest six questions on the October 2021 customs broker license exam. In her complaint, Stoute-Francois said that after appealing the test results to the Treasury Department, she was left just short of the 75% grade needed to pass the test, failing at 73.75% (Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois v. U.S., CIT # 24-00046).
CBP found substantial evidence that Legion Furniture evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders covering quartz surface products from China, but didn't find substantial evidence that Vanity Art evaded the same orders. CBP, in an Enforce and Protect Act Notice of Determination dated Feb. 9, said that Legion declared the merchandise as Vietnamese-origin wood furniture without declaring the quartz surface product components as subject to the orders on entry.