U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a joint press conference with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, said the administration has already drafted some documents to hike tariffs on Chinese goods, and is drafting other documents that might impose more export controls for goods sold to Chinese firms.
Carrie Owens, former director of enforcement operations at CBP, has joined Kelley Drye as a partner in the international trade practice group, the firm announced. She will serve as co-chair of Kelley Drye's customs practice. Owens joins the private sector after two decades in federal government service, which began in 2005 when she started at the Commerce Department as a senior attorney. She went to CBP in 2010 as a branch chief and supervising attorney before being elevated to director in 2016.
China is imposing new port fees on U.S. ships and placing sanctions on five U.S. subsidiaries of South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Marine Corporation in response to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s Section 301 investigation of China’s maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors (see 2506100023).
Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca reached a deal with the Trump administration that will delay Section 232 tariffs for three years, the company announced in an Oct. 10 press statement.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- Artificial intelligence can never fully replace customs brokers because customs work often involves situations that require understanding the context behind an issue in such a way that a machine cannot, trade experts said on a panel during the Western Cargo Conference's annual meeting in Palm Springs, California, last week.
Two trade associations -- the National Fisheries Institute and the Restaurant Law Center -- and 10 seafood importers challenged the National Marine Fisheries Service's comparability findings of 240 fisheries across 46 nations (see 2509020014), which will lead to an import ban on all seafood products from these fisheries effective Jan. 1, 2026, at the Court of International Trade (National Fisheries Institute v. United States, CIT # 25-00223).
President Donald Trump, on his way to Israel, softened his message on tariffs on Chinese goods. When asked if imposing those tariffs was still the plan, he said, "Right now it is. Let's see what happens. November 1st is an eternity."
Shippers will face no new charges after Section 301 fees on Chinese-built and -owned vessels take effect Oct. 14, DHL said in its monthly ocean freight update. Most carriers have moved their Chinese-built vessels onto other routes, so that only about 15% of capacity is Chinese-owned and 5% is Chinese-built on trans-Pacific eastbound routes, and even lower percentages are affected on trans-Atlantic westbound routes.
On Oct. 9, the FDA posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of: