Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in a radio interview in late December, explained that a bill he introduced with fellow Iowa Republican Joni Ernst and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., was "not in any way going to guarantee farmers lower fertilizer costs, but we just want to know why fertilizer prices are going up as high as they have." The bill directs USDA to detail how much fertilizer, of what types, and from what companies and countries, is imported into the U.S., and asks the department to describe the "impacts that antidumping duties and countervailing duties have on prices of fertilizer paid at the retail level."
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 25-31:
U.S. solar cell maker Auxin Solar and solar module designer Concept Clean Energy launched a lawsuit at the Court of International Trade on Dec. 29 to contest the Commerce Department's pause of antidumping and countervailing duties on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules from Southeast Asian found to be circumventing the AD/CVD orders on these products from China (Auxin Solar v. U.S., CIT # 23-00274).
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 Jan. 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 its Jan. 3 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 57, No. 49). While it contains recent court decisions, no customs rulings are included.
CBP will resume operations at several ports starting on Jan. 4, the agency said in an emailed statement late on Jan. 2: Eagle Pass in Texas, San Ysidro in California, and Lukeville and Morely Gate in Arizona.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The U.S. affiliate of a Dutch multinational company didn’t have the right to make entry, despite claiming to act as a sales agent and receiving a commission based on sales of the underlying merchandise, CBP said in a ruling recently posted to its Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) database.
The Border Trade Alliance requested a meeting with Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to discuss the "quickly deteriorating situation at the Texas-Mexico border," according to a BTA letter dated Dec. 29. The business group called the Texas Department of Public Safety’s inspections of commercial vehicles entering the state from Mexico "duplicative and costly" due to CBP being assigned to the same task.