A Wisconsin federal court on Dec. 1 dismissed a case from a former prisoner at the Nunan Chishan Prison in China against Milwaukee Electric Tool and its parent company, Techtronic Industries, for allegedly importing goods made with forced labor. Judge Brett Ludwig of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin held that the civil remedy of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which is the statute the prisoner sued under, doesn't apply to conduct occurring outside the U.S. (Xu Lun v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp., E.D. Wis. # 24-803).
DOJ's Trade Fraud Task Force plans to model its tariff enforcement efforts after the DOJ Health Care Fraud Unit's "data-drive playbook to develop leads," DOJ Criminal Division Senior Counsel Cody Herche said at the American Conference Institute's annual anti-corruption conference, according to attorneys at Morgan Lewis. The attorneys said Herche's comment indicates "potential criminal violations of US tariff laws," including the False Claims Act and the statute against smuggling goods into the U.S.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Dec. 2, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
CBP has released two Customs Bulletins, one for Nov. 5 (Vol. 59, No. 45) and one for Nov. 12 (Vol. 59, No. 46). Neither contains any rulings. However, there are Court of International Trade slip opinions: five in the Nov. 5 bulletin and one in the Nov. 12 bulletin.
CBP's El Paso field office alerted the trade that protests in Mexico on Dec. 3 are disrupting operations at commercial ports because the protesters are blocking traffic in both northbound and southbound lanes, in a Dec. 3 trade information notice.
CBP's and data technology provider Altana's foray into developing a technology tool that can provide both regulators and stakeholders with deep visibility into products' supply chains may serve as a foundation for what trade facilitation might look like in the future, Altana's vice president and head of trade compliance Amy Morgan asserted in a Dec. 2 webinar hosted by the American Association of Exporters and Importers.
Reductions of reciprocal tariffs on South Korea, as well as of Section 232 tariffs on South Korean lumber, will take retroactive effect Nov. 14 under a recently agreed trade deal, according to a notice released Dec. 3 by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Commerce Department.
Think tank scholars and lawyers emphasized that Section 232 tariffs on Mexican and Canadian autos, steel, aluminum and lumber are engendering rancor and suspicion, and the uncertainty of future tariffs levels on Mexican and Canadian imports is a silent tax causing businesses to halt investments and expansions.
Most tariff cuts under the recent U.S.-South Korea trade deal will take retroactive effect Nov. 14, with tariff cuts for autos and auto parts coming earlier on Nov. 1, as expected, said the U.S. Trade Representative in a notice released Dec. 3.