The American Apparel and Footwear Association, after the government Consumer Price Index for January showed apparel prices up 5.1% and footwear prices 6.1% higher compared with January 2021, is arguing for an "immediate elimination and refund of punitive Section 301 tariffs on U.S. imports from China." CEO Steve Lamar asked the Biden administration Feb. 10 "to pursue swift and effective policies to immediately alleviate the increasingly overwhelming costs on companies and address the shipping crisis," and to get involved with the port labor negotiations for West Coast ports. That contract expires this summer.

CBP is ending a special bond program for export consolidators at the Miami and Port Everglades ports of entry, it said in a notice. The agency is giving participants in the In-Bond Export Consolidator (IBEC) Program a one-year grace period, until Feb. 11, 2023, to “transition their facility status to either a customs bonded warehouse, container freight station, foreign trade zone, or a facility operated as a non-vessel operating common carrier, depending on their business needs, and also obtain the appropriate bond(s).”

A CBP protest was not needed to establish jurisdiction in two companies' challenge to CBP's assessment of Section 301 tariffs on goods subsequently granted a tariff exclusion since the challenge is not an entry-specific matter, the companies, ARP Materials and Harrison Steel, said in a Feb. 7 brief. Replying to the U.S.'s arguments at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the plaintiff-appellants said that their challenge has jurisdiction under Section 1581(i), the trade court's "residual" jurisdiction provision, since the action relates to CBP's imposition of the requirements of an "inapt statute" to all the entries excluded from tariff lists 2 and 3 (ARP Materials Inc. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2176).

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:​

CBP is ending a special bond program for export consolidators at the Miami and Port Everglades ports of entry, it said in a notice. The agency is giving participants in the In-Bond Export Consolidator (IBEC) Program a one-year grace period, until Feb. 11, 2023, to “transition their facility status to either a customs bonded warehouse, container freight station, foreign trade zone, or a facility operated as a non-vessel operating common carrier, depending on their business needs, and also obtain the appropriate bond(s).”

With new data out about exports to China, economist Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics says that China only bought 60% of the goods it promised, and about 57% of all it promised, when services are included. In all, China said it would buy $502.4 billion from U.S. sources in 2020 and 2021.

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CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:​

With new data out about exports to China, economist Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics says that China only bought 60% of the goods it promised, and about 57% of all it promised, when services are included. In all, China said it would buy $502.4 billion from U.S. sources in 2020 and 2021.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative should establish a “comprehensive” exclusion process to bring relief to importers with exposure to the Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, senators wrote in a bipartisan letter to USTR Katherine Tai Monday. Enabling businesses affected by the tariffs “to apply for limited, yet renewable, relief is a valuable component of our strategy to counter China’s unfair trade practices,” the 41 lawmakers said. “We believe that restarting a full exclusion process can allow the United States to continue to maintain pressure on China, while providing relief to the economic pain facing businesses and workers across the country.” For any exclusions granted under the new process, “we believe relief must be meaningfully retroactive” to the date the tariffs took effect, they said. “The exclusion process should prioritize transparency, speed, consistency, and fairness.” To ease USTR’s administrative burden of doing so, “we suggest presumptively excluding any product for which imports from China represent nearly all imports to the United States,” said the senators. “Even years after the Section 301 tariffs were imposed, the exceptional reliance on China for those specific imports suggests that moving these supply chains out of China is uniquely unlikely, and that our efforts to diversify production locales and rescore manufacturing would be better spent on other products.” USTR didn’t respond to requests for comment. Customs and Border Protection collected nearly $125 billion in four rounds of Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports through Feb. 2 since the first of the tariffs took effect in July 2018.