International Trade Today is providing readers with the top 20 stories published in 2023. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference numbers.
The Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) recently opened an investigation on whether Guess? jeans or other products of Guess? Canada contain yarn, fabric or cotton made or grown with Uyghur forced labor.
The Southern Shrimp Alliance cheered the House Select Committee on China's recommendation that seafood from China should be subject to a presumption that it was caught or processed with forced labor.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., the most prominent advocate for restricting de minimis in Congress, said he held an informal hearing in the hopes of building consensus with Republicans. No Republicans attended, but Rep. Don Beyer, a pro-trade Democrat who serves with Blumenauer on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, said in an interview after the hearing that he was swayed.
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.
Congress should remove permanent normal trade relations status for China, but rather than move Chinese imports into Column 2, it should create a China-specific tariff schedule "that restores U.S. economic leverage to ensure that the [Chinese government] abides by its trade commitments and does not engage in coercive or other unfair trade practices and decreases U.S. reliance on [Chinese] imports in sectors important for national and economic security," the House Select Committee on China wrote as one of its dozens of legislative recommendations in its "Strategy to Win America's Economic Competition with the Chinese Communist Party." The report, released Dec. 12, also recommended:
DHS is adding three more Chinese companies to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entity list for their participation in forced labor transfer programs, including two based outside the Xinjiang province of China.
DHS will add three more entities to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, it said in a notice released Dec. 8. Anhui Xinya New Materials Co., Ltd. (formerly known as Chaohu Youngor Color Spinning Technology Co., Ltd. and Chaohu Xinya Color Spinning Technology Co., Ltd.); COFCO Sugar Holdings Co., Ltd.; and Sichuan Jingweida Technology Group Co., Ltd. (also known as Sichuan Mianyang Jingweida Technology Co., Ltd. and JWD Technology; and formerly known as Mianyang High-tech Zone Jingweida Technology Co., Ltd.) are being added for “working with the government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to recruit, transport, transfer, harbor or receive forced labor or Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, or members of other persecuted groups out of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region." The new listings will take effect Dec. 11.
The Court of International Trade doesn't have jurisdiction to hear importer Southern Cross Seafoods' challenge to the National Marine Fisheries Service's rejection of its application for preapproval to import Chilean sea bass, the court ruled Dec. 7. Judge Timothy Reif said that the agency's decision, issued under the Antarctic Marine Living Resources Convention Act of 1984 (AMLRCA), doesn't constitute an "embargo or other quantitative restriction," barring jurisdiction under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction.