In a party-line vote, the House Homeland Security Committee voted to advance articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Texas company Kubota North America was ordered Jan. 25 to pay $2 million for falsely labeling replacement parts for tractors, mowers, utility vehicles, and construction and agricultural equipment as having been made in the U.S. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas entered a stipulated judgment against the company, which included the penalty and compliance reporting and record-keeping requirements for the next 20 years (U.S. v. Kubota North America Corp., N.D. Tex. # 3:24-00159).
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. 30, 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. 31 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 58, No. 04). While it contains recent court decisions, no customs rulings are included.
An analysis of how the stricter rule of origin for auto imports has been implemented -- including the unprecedented labor value content element -- praised coordination among the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Labor Department, CBP and other agencies with expertise, but noted that final regulations have been held up because the U.S. has not reached a final resolution in the dispute it lost at a USMCA panel.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas directed CBP and Homeland Security Investigations to "provide him with a comprehensive enforcement action plan in 30 days" to protect domestic textile interests. The announcement, after a meeting with domestic textile mill owners who asked the government to step up free trade agreement enforcement and Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act apparel enforcement and to end de minimis sales, also says that report should include "a determination whether current trade law provides adequate authorities to solve the core issues."
Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who tracked the ways the U.S.-China phase one trade agreement fell short, has joined the State Department as chief economist.
As Josh Kagan leaves as assistant U.S. trade representative for labor, USTR Katherine Tai announced that Katy Mastman will replace him in an acting capacity. Tai said, "Josh’s leadership has been instrumental in our successful use of the USMCA Rapid Response Labor Mechanism and work to eradicate forced labor in supply chains."
The International Trade Commission is issuing a limited exclusion order banning imports of imported graphics processing chips from TCL and Realtek that it found to be infringing on patents held by AMD, the ITC said in a notice Jan. 30 that brings the commission's Section 337 investigation to a close (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1318).