U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued its weekly tariff rate quota and tariff preference level commodity report as of March 10, 2008. This report includes TRQs on various products such as beef, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa products, tobacco, certain BFTA, DR-CAFTA, Israel FTA, JFTA, MFTA, SFTA, UAFTA (AFTA) and UCFTA (Chile FTA) non-textile TRQs, etc. Each report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, BFTA, DR-CAFTA, CBTPA, Haitian HOPE, MFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA TPLs and TRQs for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics, etc. (CBP's weekly TRQ/TPL commodity report, dated 03/10/08, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)
Automated Commercial Environment (ACE)
The Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) is the CBP's electronic system through which the international trade community reports imports and exports and the government determines admissibility.
The following were posted to CBP's Web site:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a notice announcing that it has approved the design for Automated Commercial Environment air electronic manifest (ACE e-Manifest: Air) for advance cargo information purposes, making way for development to begin.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a press release announcing the creation of a new Import Surveillance Division at the CPSC as part of its new import strategy and to increase CPSC presence at the ports.
The World Shipping Council (WSC) has submitted 26 pages of comments to U.S. Customs and Border Protection on its proposed rule to amend 19 CFR to require Security Filing (SF) information from importers and additional information from carriers (10+2) for vessel (maritime) cargo before it is brought into the U.S.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a notice announcing that CBP is preparing a comprehensive system testing plan designed to provide insights into the operational performance of the new Automated Commercial Environment sea and rail manifest (ACE e-Manifest: Sea and Rail1) processing for advance cargo information purposes before it is deployed to U.S. ports of entry in fall 2008.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the following documents related to the November 16, 2007 meeting of the Departmental Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Related Homeland Security Functions (COAC):
The following are documents which CBP updates frequently (weekly, monthly, etc.):
U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued an ocean and rail manifest Cargo Systems Messaging Service (CSMS) message inviting Master Vessel Operating Common Carriers (MVOCCs) and rail carriers to take a survey on future Automated Commercial Environment M1 (e-Manifest: Rail and Sea) capabilities.
CBP has posted an updated version of its guidance on the Automated Commercial Environment update deployed on February 2, 2008 that enabled electronic in-bond requests filed via the Automated Broker Interface message QP to update a shipment record that is reported in a truck ACE e-Manifest with a shipment release type of Pre-Arrival Processing System (PAPS).