More than 400 products that are excluded from Section 301 tariffs will continue to enter under normal duties through May 31, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced Dec. 26. The exclusions had been scheduled to end at the end of this year.
Customs duty
A customs duty is a tariff or tax which a country imposes on goods when they are transported across international borders. Customs Duties are used to protect countries' economies, residents, jobs, and environments, by limiting the flow of imported merchandise, especially restricted and prohibited goods, into the country. The Customs duty rate is a percentage determined by the value of the article purchased in the foreign country and not based on quality, size, or weight. U.S. customs duties are listed in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced eligibility for “trade surplus” tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for sugar originating in certain free trade agreement countries for calendar year 2024. USTR found Colombia and five members of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement -- Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua -- eligible for the TRQ. The agency found that Chile, the Dominican Republic, Morocco, Panama and Peru don't qualify.
The Commerce Department set the 12-month 2024 value-added tariff preference level for certain apparel imported directly from Haiti eligible to receive duty-free treatment under the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Through Partnership Encouragement Act (HOPE). For the one-year period Dec. 20, 2023, through Dec. 19, 2024, the recalculated quantity of imports eligible for preferential treatment under the value-added TPL is 313,655,640 square meters equivalent (SME). Apparel articles entered in excess of this TPL will be subject to otherwise applicable duty rates.
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.
The Court of International Trade ruled Dec. 11 that imported industrial shredders that use blades to break up material carry no duties because they are classifiable as crushing and grinding machines.
CBP authorized the release of most types of merchandise on or after Dec. 15 through Dec. 31 under Immediate Delivery (ID) procedures, it said in a CSMS message. Many entry filers make regular use of ID procedures for fresh fruits and vegetables and other merchandise from Mexico and Canada.
Large steel and aluminum corporations and associations representing small and medium-sized metal processors, recyclers and environmental advocates told the International Trade Commission that it's on the right track in the questions it's asking about embedded carbon in steelmaking and aluminum smelting, but that choosing detailed data is tricky, and, in some cases, not possible for smaller companies to produce. Broadly, there are scope 1 emissions, which are the greenhouse gases produced through onsite processes; scope 2, which cover the purchased electricity needed for manufacturing and scope 3, which cover the embedded carbon of inputs, whether raw materials or semifinished goods.
Textile gloves with a plastic coating on the palm and fingers are classifiable in the tariff schedule as gloves, not as articles of plastics, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a Dec. 6 opinion.
The Court of International Trade ruled Dec. 4 that a medical food company's imports would be classified as food, not as pharmaceutical products.
A bipartisan, bicameral bill would allow cashmere products made in Mongolia duty-free access to the U.S., as a way of strengthening Mongolia's democracy, its sponsors say.