Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, after meeting with China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, said the two countries will set up a commercial issues working group that will include both government officials and business representatives "to seek solutions on trade and investment issues and to advance U.S. commercial interests in China."

Taiwan is requiring a certificate of origin and customs approval before certain Chinese-origin chipmaking equipment can be shipped to the U.S. The requirement will apply to shipments of certain “machine tools operated by laser processes, of a kind used solely or principally for the manufacture of printed circuits, printed circuit assemblies, parts” or “parts of automatic data processing machines,” Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign Trade announced this month.

Taiwan is requiring a certificate of origin and customs approval before certain Chinese-origin chipmaking equipment can be shipped to the U.S. The requirement will apply to shipments of certain “machine tools operated by laser processes, of a kind used solely or principally for the manufacture of printed circuits, printed circuit assemblies, parts” or “parts of automatic data processing machines,” Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign Trade announced this month.

CBP's admission that imported desk pad and planning calendars meet the dictionary definition of "calendar" is evidence that the items should have been so classified as a calendar under Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the U.S. subheading 4910.00.2000 instead of the basket provision for other paper products in subheading 4820.10.4000, importer Blue Sky said in a motion for judgment filed Aug. 23 at the Court of International Trade. Blue Sky is attempting to overturn CBP's classification of four models of Blue Sky's weekly and monthly planning calendars. While both classifications are duty-free, the government's preferred classification carries additional Section 301 duties (Blue Sky The Color of Imagination v. U.S., CIT # 21-00624).

The Timber Working Group, a structure established in 2021 instead of tariffs after a Section 301 investigation on Vietnamese trading practices, discussed how Vietnam is keeping confiscated timber out of the commercial supply chain, how Vietnam verifies the legality of domestically harvested timber, and how Vietnam is "working with high-risk source countries to improve customs enforcement at the border and law enforcement collaboration."

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Aug. 21 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):

The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Law firm Benesch Friedlander changed its Cleveland address from 200 Public Square, Suite 2300, to 127 Public Square, Suite 4900. The firm notified the Court of International Trade on Aug. 18. Benesch Friedlander attorneys represent various clients in 19 separate Section 301 cases, all of which are a part of the massive litigation.

An expert on China's electric vehicle manufacturing praised the Inflation Reduction Act's incentives to build U.S. advanced battery manufacturing capacity but told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that completely cutting China out of that sector's supply chain is impractical. The Zero Emissions Transportation Association has made similar arguments (see 2208040045); the Treasury Department has not yet said how the "country of concern" restrictions for EV tax credits will be applied. However, Treasury allows leased cars to avoid all the localization rules.