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.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
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:
National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America President J.D. Gonzalez said the trade group thinks the Customs Modernization Act is heavily focused on enforcement, and the group is "a little disappointed" that some of the items that NCBFAA talked about with Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., didn't find their way into this bill.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The Customs Modernization bill introduced in the Senate allows CBP to access data from parties in the supply chain other than importers, allows those parties to update and amend their advance data, and authorizes a customs broker or importer of record to convert the pre-entry information into a certified entry filing.
A bipartisan Customs Modernization bill would allow CBP to use advance data to enforce customs laws, permit summary forfeiture of certain goods that infringe on intellectual property rights, and allow for streamlined disposition of detained de minimis packages, when CBP did not receive a response from the shipper.
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Automakers will have to track almost every battery component for electric vehicles -- including cathode electrodes, anode electrodes, solid metal electrodes, separators, liquid electrolytes, and solid state electrolytes that go into battery cells -- if they want consumers to be able to benefit from the full $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles.
A researcher in the International Trade Commission's Office of Industry and Competitiveness Analysis said the share of de minimis shipments from China is falling -- it was 58% in 2021 -- but goods made in China may be coming from countries whose shipments are rising, such as Canada. Canada accounts for 8% of small-value packages. De minimis shipments are subject to risk-based screening, but the importers do not pay any tariffs.