Congress has not yet finished the text of the government spending bill that needs to pass this week, but House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., said in the early afternoon that several trade provisions he had hoped would hitch a ride weren't included. He said his understanding was that the African Growth and Opportunity Act wouldn't be attached, nor would the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program.

The National Marine Fisheries Service seeks to revise regulations to allow for the streamlining of electronic filing requirements pertaining to the import of fish or fish products, according to a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register.

A three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit told the Court of International Trade that it has now twice wrongly told an importer that its first-sale price method to determine the duty level of its cookware was prohibited.

Congress will pass a spending bill before leaving next week, and while everyone wants to attach their legislation to it, the prospect for Haitian trade preferences to get a ride seems relatively strong.

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.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is hiking tariffs on Chinese solar wafers and polysilicon to 50% and Chinese tungsten products covered by Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings 8101.94.00, 8101.99.10 and 8101.99.80 will face 25% tariffs, beginning Jan. 1.

The Treasury Department’s recent delegation of its customs revenue functions to DHS “will make the regulatory process much more efficient and ensure everyone has adequate input,” acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said in opening remarks at the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting Dec. 11.

Customs brokers could start to see considerable fruits of CBP's efforts to modernize ACE sometime in the next two years, according to a CBP official who spoke during a Dec. 10 webinar sponsored by the Los Angeles Customs Brokers & Freight Forwarders Association.

Continuing Treasury Department holdups in vetting new members of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee, combined with a few absences, meant that the advisory body didn’t have a quorum to vote on recommendations or other motions at its Dec. 11 meeting.

The Commerce Department issued a final rule making various changes to its antidumping and countervailing duty procedures, notably altering its nonmarket economy policy in AD cases by allowing entities in third countries "owned or controlled" by nonmarket economies to be subject to the country-wide AD rate for that nation.