Guidance Needed Before Importers Rely on New de Minimis Standard in Silicon WRO, Law Firm Says
CBP seemed to open up the possibility for a new de minimis provision under forced labor withhold release orders, but more guidance is needed to determine its impact, Mayer Brown said in an Aug. 16 post. The post focused on an answer released in a recent CBP set of frequently asked questions on the WRO on silica-based products made by Hoshine Silicon Industry Co. in Xinjiang, China (see 2108030026). “CBP now appears willing to use its authority to enforce US law on the use of forced labor (19 U.S.C § 1307) to provide importers with flexibility when their imports contain de minimis amounts of product produced with forced labor,” the firm said. “However, until more guidance develops on how CBP intends to implement this policy, manufacturers and US importers should be wary of relying on it too heavily.”
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It is unclear how any sort of de minimis carve-out would extend to other WROs, especially because CBP said in its FAQs for the WRO on cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang that importers "are responsible for ensuring the products they are attempting to import were not made with the use of forced labor at any point in their supply chain,” Mayer Brown said. The underlying WRO statute and CBP's implementing regulations do not include a de minimis carve-out, it said. CBP hasn't commented on whether the policy extends beyond the Hoshine WRO (see 2108050019).