On Aug. 29, the FDA posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
The FDA is allowing the safe use of hydrogen peroxide in food as an antimicrobial agent, oxidizing and reducing agent, and bleaching agent, according to a final rule to be published in the Federal Register Sept. 3, the date it also becomes effective. The agency also is allowing hydrogen peroxide to be used as a food additive that can remove sulfur dioxide.
Over one-third of retail-packaged frozen seafood products sampled by the FDA for short weighting failed to be compliant with net weight declaration on the product label, and those importers found violating compliance have been placed on an import alert, according to results from the agency released on Sept. 2.
The National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has published its comparability finding determinations for all fisheries on the list of foreign fisheries, the agency said in a Federal Register notice.
The House Appropriations Committee released a summary of its plans for several agencies on Sept. 1, and said it intends to eliminate funding for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs. That bureau, commonly known as ILAB, prepares the annual report on products made with the worst forms of child labor and forced labor. It also has an app to help companies called "SourceRight."
The U.S. apparently failed to implement promised tariff reductions on European Union goods in time for a Sept. 1 deadline outlined in an EU-U.S. joint statement issued Aug. 21.
President Donald Trump claimed that India offered to "cut their Tariffs to nothing," as India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, stood firm against U.S. tariff pressure and promised deeper trade ties with Russia.
Surety company U.S. Specialty Insurance Company argued in an Aug. 29 complaint at the Court of International Trade that CBP failed to use transaction value to value importer Cheer Rise's garment entries. Instead, the agency arbitrarily decided to use the "fall back method" of appraisal, "rendering the appraisement unlawful," the complaint said (U.S. Specialty Insurance Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00188).
DOJ launched a cross-agency "Trade Fraud Task Force" on Aug. 29 to "bring robust enforcement against importers and other parties who seek to defraud the United States," the agency announced. The task force will bring together attorneys from the agency's civil and criminal divisions, along with officials at CBP, to target tariff evasion and "smugglers who seek to import prohibited goods into the American economy."
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters: