CBP has issued messages on a number of antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty actions, many of which (marked by an * in the action column) were previously published in the Federal Register by the International Trade Administration (ITA) and summarized in International Trade Today.

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued its preliminary results of the following antidumping (AD) duty administrative reviews:

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has issued an interim final rule, effective January 16, 2004, which amends the Chemical Weapons Convention Regulations (CWCR) in 15 CFR Part 711 by adding instructions on how to obtain authorization from BIS to make electronic submissions of declarations and reports required under the CWCR through the Web-Data Entry System for Industry (Web-DESI), etc.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has made available on its Web site an updated document on the U.S./Canada Free and Secure Trade (FAST) program.

The European Union (EU) is requesting World Trade Organization (WTO) authorization to apply retaliatory sanctions against the U.S. for its failure to bring the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (Byrd Amendment) into conformity with WTO rules by December 27, 2003. The EU states that this deadline for compliance with the WTO Appellate Body's ruling passed without action from U.S. Congress to repeal the measure.

The Winter 2003 issue of the NCBFAA Quarterly Bulletin contains an article that states that miscellaneous tariff and trade bills are no longer routine, are not predictable, and may not even be possible. The article notes that such bills have increasingly become the vehicle for solving larger, tougher trade and economic issues that have nothing to do with the tedious technical language of miscellaneous tariff and trade bills. (NBFAA Quarterly Bulletin, No. 103-4, Winter 2003, www.ncbfaa.org.)

The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has issued a final rule, effective January 15, 2004, which amends its regulations at 7 CFR 319 on the importation of logs, lumber, and other unmanufactured wood articles into the U.S. to allow wood chips derived from temperate species of Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus) from South America to be treated with a surface pesticide prior to importation as an alternative to the existing treatments.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has published a final rule which amends the Customs Regulations effective January 5, 2004 regarding the advance electronic presentation of information pertaining to cargo (sea, air, rail, or truck) prior to its being brought into, or sent from, the U.S.

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued a press release on its remand determination in response to a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Panel's decision regarding the final determination in the countervailing (CV) duty investigation on softwood lumber from Canada (C-122-839).

On January 14, 2004, the International Trade Commission (ITC) issued a news release on its preliminary negative antidumping (AD) injury determination stating that there is no reasonable indication that a U.S. industry is materially injured or threatened with material injury by reason of imports of ready-to-cook kosher chicken and parts thereof from Canada.