Regulatory agencies with jurisdiction over imports and exports published their regulatory plans for the next several months as part of the Fall 2017 Unified Agenda. As in the first regulatory agenda published by the Trump administration this spring, the fall agenda takes a deregulatory bent, although many regulations left off the prior agenda reappear in several agencies' plans. The Food and Drug Administration looks set to be particularly active, listing in its agenda new deregulatory actions as well as several new enforcement authorities.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP should remove from its regulations a limit of "one shipment per day" for imports under $800, the National Association of Manufacturers said in comments to the agency about rules considered onerous (see 1712120024). That shipment limit goes against "modern business practices where manufacturers may need to import commodities, component[s] or other goods on a 'just in time' basis," NAM said. "Manufacturers recommend that CBP eliminate the one shipment per day provision to be consistent with the" Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, which raised the dollar value of the de minimis threshold.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Dec. 4-8 in case they were missed.
CBP's deployment and full use of ACE capabilities offers the biggest chance to lessen regulation and related costs, Boeing and others said in comments to CBP. The comments came in response to a CBP solicitation for input on regulations seen as deserving elimination or changes (see 1709110004). "We believe that moving to a fully paperless environment and ensuring maximum utilization of the ACE Portal will be the one achievement that will have the most significant positive effect on streamlining and reducing regulations, and for that reason it should be the priority focus of a regulatory review," Boeing said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The National Marine Fisheries Service is currently “grappling” with whether the trade community is ready for new ACE filing requirements for high-risk seafood under its Seafood Import Monitoring Program, said Dale Jones, an NMFS fishery program specialist, at CBP’s East Coast Trade Symposium on Dec. 6. The December 2016 final rule will still go into effect on Jan. 1, but NMFS does not want to hold up trade, so there may be some way the agency can “work diligently” with affected importers to help them through the transition, he said. “We might hit some turbulence.” The new data requirements will initially apply to imports of Atlantic cod, Pacific cod, blue crab, red king crab, dolphinfish (mahi mahi), grouper, red snapper, sea cucumber, sharks, swordfish, and albacore, bigeye, bluefin, skipjack and yellowfin tuna, with requirements also eventually planned for shrimp and abalone. The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America recently called on NMFS to adopt a “soft compliance” policy, citing readiness concerns (see 1712040022).
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
ATLANTA -- CBP is looking at options to create a “foreign entity ID” to replace the manufacturer ID it currently requires on entry documentation, said Jeff Nii, director of CBP’s interagency collaboration division, at the East Coast Trade Symposium on Dec. 6. Alongside its counterparts on the Border Interagency Executive Council (BIEC), the agency is looking into several options, including working with a non-profit standards organizations and creating the IDs on its own, prioritizing low cost in the hopes that the entity ID system garners worldwide adoption. The BIEC, which is currently finalizing its own operating procedures, will also soon begin consideration of product sub-identifiers that would provide more detail than currently allowed by the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, Nii said.