Shein, which has made its business selling fast fashion from Chinese manufacturers in de minimis packages to American consumers, announced Dec. 19 that it has begun participating in the Section 321 Data Pilot program. The Section 321 pilot is smaller and requires less data than Type 86 filing. The company said it had been participating more than 30 days, and CBP confirmed that it was receiving all the relevant import entry information for the data pilot.
Rep. Don Beyer, a long-time trade liberalization advocate, led a 90-minute hearing making the case against more tariffs in the second Trump administration, and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden slammed the economic impact of campaign tariff promises as the Democrats try to use their bully pulpits in the last week before Republicans will have control at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
A five-year renewal of the Haiti HELP/HOPE trade preferences is the only tariff liberalization legislation that was attached to the federal spending bill that will keep the federal government open through mid-March.
Venable lawyers said no one knows whether President-elect Donald Trump will hike tariffs on China by 10 percentage points, by 60 percentage points, or bring current tariff levels to 60%. Nor does anyone know if the threat of 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican exports will become reality.
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Congress has not yet finished the text of the government spending bill that needs to pass this week, but House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., said in the early afternoon that several trade provisions he had hoped would hitch a ride weren't included. He said his understanding was that the African Growth and Opportunity Act wouldn't be attached, nor would the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program.
Donald Trump's return to the White House brings a "lack of predictability," Baker McKenzie attorneys said during a webinar last week on how threatened tariffs could affect countries around the globe.
The Commerce Department failed to consider whether U.S. Steel Corp. had the capacity to fill the aggregate of importer California Steel Industries' Section 232 steel tariff exclusion requests as opposed to just assessing whether U.S. Steel could fill all of them individually, the Court of International Trade held on Nov. 13. Judge M. Miller Baker added that Commerce didn't address its concession that it couldn't timely supply more slab than contracted for with California Steel.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters: