The Commerce Department soon will suspend liquidation and impose countervailing duty cash deposit requirements on imports of vanillin from China, it said in a fact sheet Nov. 13. Commerce set CVD rates at 27.33% for all Chinese exporters, the agency said as it announced its preliminary determinations in its ongoing CVD investigations. Suspension of liquidation and cash deposit requirements will take effect for entries on or after the date of publication of the preliminary determinations in the Federal Register, which should occur in the coming days.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is welcoming more importers to its eFiling initiative, according to an emailed Nov. 14 announcement from the agency. "The eFiling voluntary stage has begun with a phased invitation schedule for interested importers and their trade partners to begin testing eFiling systems," CPSC said. "CPSC will continue to accept registration requests and add to the waitlist for the eFiling voluntary stage." The agency began its phased eFiling invitation schedule on Oct. 28. The eFiling voluntary stage will continue until CPSC reaches its maximum participation capacity of 2,000 importers (see 2406030059). The Biden administration has said CPSC will issue its final rule making eFiling mandatory this fall (see 2409130004).
On Nov. 13, the FDA posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts (after not having posted new ones for a number of days) on the detention without physical examination of:
The FDA has revised aspects of the agency's Voluntary Qualified Importer Program that could result in lower user fees, according to a Nov. 14 release.
The Senate Appropriations Committee issued its proposal for funding the Department of Homeland Security, asserting its bill could get the bipartisan support needed to pass that chamber. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has previously said he would prefer to delay spending decisions until next year, when the House, Senate and White House will have Republican majorities. However, some observers believe Republicans would be better served by passing during the lame-duck session appropriations for the fiscal year that goes through September, freeing up Congress to spend its time in 2025 on the massive tax bill and other policy Trump administration priorities (see 2411120026).
House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., proposes increasing tariffs on nearly all Chinese goods to at least 35% and raising tariffs on "strategic goods" to 100%, with exceptions only for goods that are currently sourced only from China.
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 Nov. 13, 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 created Harmonized System Update 2415 on Nov. 13, containing 16,156 Automated Broker Interface (ABI) records and 5,000 Harmonized Tariff Schedule records. The update details 2024 cotton fee updates (see 2409130022). The HSU also reflects flagging updates to several HTS records, where the AM7 flag is being removed from 1,700 records involving organic products (see 2410170035). This removal process began Oct. 18, and another update message will indicate when the process is complete.
NEW YORK -- The executive director of CBP's Office of Trade Relations told U.S. Fashion Industry Association conference attendees this week that CBP thought crossing the 1 billion de minimis packages threshold was big, but then volume increased about 40% in the 2024 fiscal year. Felicia Pullam said CBP cannot handle that kind of massive increase and is confident it's stopping dangerous contact lenses, vapes, toys with lead paint, counterfeit airbags, medicines and other illicit goods.