The announcement comes after Beijing announced its first round of tariff exemptions for U.S. goods earlier in the day.

China’s Finance Ministry on Sept. 11 announced the first round of exemptions of U.S. goods from Chinese retaliatory tariffs. The exemptions will be effective from Sept. 17 to Sept. 16, 2020. Specifically, the exclusions will cover two lists — one comprising 12 items and another comprising four items.  For the first list, affected import enterprises […]

Almost all companies required to conduct due diligence to determine the countries of origin for conflict minerals used in their products did so last year, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Sept. 9. The relevant Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation generally requires companies to disclose whether they sourced tin, tantalum, gold […]

A NAFTA binational antidumping and countervailing duty dispute panel on Sept. 4 issued a decision upholding the U.S. International Trade Commission’s (ITC’s) finding that imports of softwood lumber from Canada are causing adverse impact to U.S. industry, according to a Sept. 5 note from the NAFTA Secretariat. “The panel found that the commission’s finding of […]

Vice President Mike Pence on Sept. 5 in London made the case for a post-Brexit U.S.-United Kingdom trade agreement, asserting that such a deal could triple or quadruple bilateral trade. The U.K. was the seventh-largest U.S. trading partner in 2018, when the U.S. exported $66.3 billion worth of goods to the country and imported $60.8 […]

A white paper released Sept. 4 by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., raises concern with the ability of the federal government to combat trade-based money laundering (TBML) and suggests that a public distributed ledger system could be used to prevent such money laundering. “There needs to be real-time coordination and reviewable connections between the agency handling […]

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Sept. 3 stated a shared commitment for their countries to work constructively on a solution to international taxation at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) by early 2020, Treasury announced after the officials met in Washington, DC. The commitment comes after […]

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers arrested a 24-year-old woman on Sept. 2 at the Port of Lukeville, AZ, for attempting to smuggle 53 pounds of methamphetamine from Mexico to the U.S., CBP announced Sept. 3. The drugs have a street value of almost $48,000, the agency said. Officers referred the Mexican national for secondary […]

China will file a dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding U.S. tariffs across approximately $263 billion worth of goods from China in annual import value, China’s Commerce Ministry said Sept. 2. That $263 billion represents the latest round of U.S. Section 301 tariffs on China, the first phase of which took effect at […]

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is accepting comments through Oct. 31 on foreign barriers to exports of U.S. goods and services, U.S. direct foreign investment, and protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights for inclusion in USTR’s annual National Trade Estimate (NTE) Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, the agency said. USTR said […]

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has released notices for publication in the Federal Register to increase tariffs across almost all imports from China. One notice would increase tariffs from 10% to 15% across approximately $263 billion worth of annual imports from China. The notice is scheduled to be officially published on Aug. […]

French President Emmanuel Macron on Aug. 26 claimed that the U.S. and France reached a deal regarding France’s digital tax framework, after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative started a Section 301 investigation on the matter in July. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 provides for the imposition of trade remedies, including […]

The commission will publish a final rule in the Federal Register on Aug. 27 requiring more information from petitioners.

The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) Rapid Response Subcommittee on Aug. 21 proposed that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) support a “Northern Triangle Trade and Job Promotion Act” to promote exports of apparel, agricultural products and other regional economic staples to the U.S. from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. COAC is proposing the legislation, […]

China will impose additional tariffs on U.S. imports worth about $75 billion in response to a forthcoming fourth tranche of U.S. tariffs across about $262 billion worth of goods from China in annual import value, China’s State Council announced Aug. 23. Additional tariffs of 5% or 10% will be imposed in two batches on 5,078 […]

The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) on Aug. 21 approved a recommendation for Customs and Border Protection to allow carriers to assume liability for initial in-bond shipments, where the initial in-bond was applied in another mode. COAC also recommended to allow for confirmation of the appropriate arrival/export by the assuming carrier. Further, COAC recommended […]

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is requesting written comments identifying online and physical markets to be considered for inclusion in USTR’s 2019 Notorious Markets List, the agency said. USTR will accept comments through September 30 and rebuttal comments and “other information USTR should consider during the review” through October 15, the agency said. […]

U.S. Customs and Border Protection systems at airports nationwide encountered an unexpected outage Friday afternoon, leaving passengers waiting in extremely long lines, according to multiple news outlets. “CBP is experiencing a temporary outage with its processing systems at various air ports of entry & is taking immediate action to address the technology disruption,” CBP Tweeted. […]

Customs and Border Protection late this month will start live testing for blockchain’s applicability to intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement, according to a document posted online in preparation for the August 21 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) meeting in Buffalo, N.Y. The test is scheduled to last through late September, says the document posted […]

As the U.S.-China trade war intensified with the Trump administration announcing more tariffs, the two countries clashed in two disputes this week at the World Trade Organization (WTO). During a meeting of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) on August 15, the DSB agreed to China’s request to establish a dispute panel to rule on […]