As importers find themselves in the cross-hairs of CBP's plans to ramp up trade enforcement, they can no longer rely solely on customs brokers and siloed trade compliance departments because the stakes have become too high, trade attorneys suggested during an Oct. 22 Foley & Lardner webinar.
Small businesses have to hike prices more due to imports compared with large companies, and also are likely to face a higher tariff burden because of their lack of leverage with suppliers, according to an analysis published this week by the American Action Forum's Jacob Jensen.
In an effort to drive sales, suppliers have been offering dodgy tariff mitigation strategies to importers, lawyers with Foley and Lardner warned during an Oct. 22 webinar. Suppliers, particularly in countries hard-hit by tariffs like China and India, are as desperate as importers to avoid the painfully high tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, and may offer bad advice to importers to drive sales, lawyer John Turlais said.
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 21 granted the government's motion for default judgment against importer E-Dong, U.S.A. for negligently failing to pay a federal excise tax on 20 entries of its "Korean distilled beverage soju." Judge Timothy Reif ordered E-Dong to pay $234,748.30 in unpaid federal excise tax along with pre- and post-judgment interest, which shall be calculated according to the relevant statutes.
CBP recently issued two rulings on duty-free classification under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9817, including one that unsuccessfully lobbied for a reconsideration of a previous ruling.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Oct. 6-12:
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- Artificial intelligence can never fully replace customs brokers because customs work often involves situations that require understanding the context behind an issue in such a way that a machine cannot, trade experts said on a panel during the Western Cargo Conference's annual meeting in Palm Springs, California, last week.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Sept. 29 - Oct. 5:
Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit pressed counsel for importer Blue Sky the Color of Imagination and the government during oral argument on Oct. 7 in the importer's customs classification suit on its notebooks with calendars. During the argument, Judges Alan Lourie, Raymond Chen and William Bryson grappled with whether the court is bound by its 2010 ruling in Mead v. U.S. and whether the goods are properly classified as calendars or diaries (Blue Sky The Color of Imagination v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1710).
The Bureau of Industry and Security posted more requests for new products to be included as derivatives subject to Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum products. The release of the requests starts a two-week comment period for the potential inclusions, with comments on each due Oct. 21.