"Activity" is "on the horizon" related to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, Lesleyanne Kessler, CBP’s deputy associate chief counsel, said at an event on June 13. Following the recent addition of new companies to the list for the first time since the list was released in June 2022 (see 2306090011), Kessler said she expects the process for an interagency task force to add companies or remove them from the list "will be moving ahead in the coming year."
The top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee has reintroduced a bill eliminating Chinese shippers' eligibility for de minimis, keeping the ban on China, and adding a requirement that remaining de minimis shipments include at a minimum: a description; an HTS code; a country of origin, shipper, importer; and a U.S. value. The new version also dropped language around sections 232 and 301 tariffs in the previous version.
A recently introduced bill would end Chinese and Russian shippers' eligibility for de minimis, and would order the Treasury Department to determine, within 180 days, what rates the other countries deserve for de minimis, based on both their own de minimis treatment of U.S. shipments and their threshold to collect a value-added tax, if they have one.
Once CBP submits its proposal for a new customs modernization law, National Foreign Trade Council Senior Director of International Supply Chain Policy John Pickel says, Congress will dig into how they want to shape the bill. It’s not an easy task to produce a bill with a balance between enforcement and trade facilitation, but that’s Congress’ intention, he said.
Mexico's ban on the import of goods made with forced labor went into effect three weeks ago, so if importers whose goods were detained by CBP under suspicion of forced labor wanted to re-export to Mexico, that avenue is closed, said Eduardo Sotelo Cauduro, a partner with Sanchez DeVanny, a Mexican law firm.
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Very little of a hearing on customs modernization focused on the issues CBP and the trade have focused on as they work on a modernization proposal. The agency and traders are talking about new kinds of advance data, expedited release for trusted traders, better harmonization of data requests from partner government agencies and CBP, and data sharing from CBP with rights holders on intellectual property violations, among other changes.
The high-profile House Select Committee on China is recommending that the de minimis threshold of $800 be reduced "with particular focus on foreign adversaries including the PRC."
Eighteen months after a senator launched a discussion draft on customs modernization (see 2111030035), the House Ways and Means Committee is beginning its examination of how to shape a bill to update CBP's authorities.
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.