International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Importers Global Plastics and Marco Polo International agreed to pay $6.8 million to settle claims that they violated the False Claims Act by knowingly failing to pay customs duties on plastic resin from China, DOJ announced. The U.S. said Global Plastics and Marco Polo, both subsidiaries of MGI International, received credit for "cooperating with the government."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said "all aircraft and component parts, certain chemicals, certain generics, semiconductor equipment, certain agricultural products, natural resources and critical raw materials" from EU countries will be duty-free in the U.S. as part of a trade deal between the two sides.
Former trade lawyer Scott Lincicome, who now leads the libertarian Cato Institute's trade division, said the administration learned the natural consequences of Section 301 tariffs when Chinese goods flow to India, Mexico and Vietnam as inputs to manufactured goods that are created in those countries.
CBP upheld its June 2024 ruling that the customer who buys the medication at retail -- not the retail pharmacy -- is the ultimate purchaser, and as a result, retail pharmacies must list the medicine's country of origin on the prescription label. This is the case even if the FDA's Drug Supply Chain Security Act doesn't require country of origin on the prescription label, according to CBP.
A domestic producer recently filed a petition with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission requesting antidumping and countervailing duties be imposed on freight rail couplers imported from the Czech Republic and India. Commerce now will decide whether to begin AD/CVD investigations, which could result in the imposition of permanent AD/CVD orders and the assessment of AD and CVD on importers. The Coalition of Freight Coupler Producers, composed of McConway & Torley LLC and the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, requested the investigation.
Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., a lead sponsor of the Prevent Tariff Abuse Act, has convinced 71 other Democrats to join her in clarifying that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act doesn't give a president the ability to impose quotas, tariff rate quotas or tariffs on imports.
Although a majority of the Senate voted to end the underlying emergency that allowed the president to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian goods, a vote was blocked in the House.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP recently determined that "there is substantial evidence" that Ribest Ribbons & Bows and TriMar Ribbon evaded antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders when importing Chinese-origin ribbons via transshipment through India.