Commerce Publishes Notice Delaying Aluminum Import Licensing Requirements
The Commerce Department on April 1 published its notice in the Federal Register about delaying aluminum import licensing requirements under its Aluminum Import Monitoring System until June 28, 2021 (see 2103290041). “This delay will allow Commerce time to finalize the license application system and to provide both the public and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with sufficient advance notice of the new compliance date,” Commerce said in the notice. The delay also will allow the agency to respond to comments received on the scheme, and “Commerce intends to issue another notification addressing these comments prior to June 28, 2021,” it said.
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While compliance with import licensing requirements is no longer required as of March 29, other effective dates set by Commerce’s December rule remain unchanged. “The remaining portions of the regulations concerning the removal of the option to state 'unknown' for certain fields on the aluminum license form will be effective on December 24, 2021, as stated in the relevant sections of part 361, unless otherwise announced,” Commerce said. “Further guidance on licenses already issued and the issuance of new licenses in the intervening period before June 28, 2021 will be provided on the AIM system website.”
However, Commerce will at this time move forward with its public aluminum import monitor on its website. “When released, the public AIM monitor will provide information on U.S. imports of aluminum from all countries by broad product categories in both value and volume measures. The public AIM monitor will initially only include publicly available import data, as the license information will not be available. Once the license collection begins, and Commerce has had sufficient time to review the license data, the public AIM monitor will report certain aggregate information on imports of aluminum product categories using both publicly available import data and data obtained from the aluminum licenses,” the agency said.