The Court of International Trade in a confidential July 15 order denied customs broker Seko Customs Brokerage's application for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against CBP's temporary suspension of the company from the Entry Type 86 pilot and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program. Judge Claire Kelly said she intends to issue a public version of the opinion "on or shortly after" July 23, giving the litigants until July 22 to review the confidential information in the decision (Seko Customs Brokerage v. U.S., CIT # 24-00097).
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 July 15, 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 detained 291 shipments under suspicion of forced labor in June, the agency said this week; the goods were valued at more than $39 million. The monthly report also said CBP seized 1,501 shipments of counterfeit goods in June. It collected $2.3 million worth of duties and fees from goods that had been improperly declared, where the violations were identified in audits.
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The Commerce Department is setting new certification requirements for importers of wooden cabinets and vanities from Malaysia and Vietnam, after finding cabinets and vanities made under several production scenarios are covered by the scope of antidumping and countervailing duties on wooden cabinets and vanities from China (A-570-106/C-570-107).
CBP affirmed an earlier ruling that hand sanitizer dispensing stations manufactured in China should be classified for tariff purposes as “other furniture” instead of parts of mechanical appliances suited for projecting liquids, according to an agency decision rendered April 26.
Brazil, the largest exporter of semifinished steel to Mexico after the U.S., won't be subject to the melted and poured restriction the two countries recently announced, the Mexican government disclosed last week. Aluminum cast in Brazil and steel melted and poured there won't be subject to Section 232 tariffs if they are processed in Mexico and exported to the U.S.
The government of Mexico has asked the U.S. to exempt Mexican bifacial solar panels from a global safeguard tariff. Economy Secretary Raquel Buenrostro noted that USMCA, or T-MEC, as they call it in Mexico, has rules in this regard. The July 12 press release didn't spell it out, but safeguards are only to be applied to Mexico and Canada if their imports are integral to the injury to U.S. producers; the U.S. eventually reversed the solar panel safeguard on all Canadian panels (see 2207070041).
The National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking information from fish importers and others on nations or entities entering into international fishery management agreements related to illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing, according to a Federal Register notice. NMFS is also seeking information on vessels that have engaged in or are engaging in IUU fishing or practices that result in the "bycatch of protected living marine resources" on the high seas or within a nation’s exclusive economic zone, as well as information on any vessels that may have engaged in such activity targeting or incidentally catching sharks.