The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices for May 10 (Note that some may also be given separate headlines.)
Mexico's Diario Oficial of April 12, lists notices from the Secretary of the Economy as follows:
New free trade agreements, World Trade Organization initiatives and bilateral talks have reduced technical, sanitary and phytosanitary barriers to trade, the U.S. Trade Representative said in two reports sent to Congress and President Obama April 1. The report on Technical Barriers to Trade addresses unwarranted or overly burdensome technical barriers, making it difficult for American businesses to sell products abroad (read the report here). The Report on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Barriers to trade focuses on unwarranted SPS barriers which block agricultural imports (here).
The International Trade Administration announced the opportunity to request administrative reviews by April 30 for producers and exporters subject to eight antidumping duty orders with April anniversary dates. Affected products include activated carbon, frontseating service valves, and magnesium metal.
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., urged the FCC to take “bolder action” to reform the Lifeline program, in a letter sent Wednesday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Pryor said more must be done to prevent abuses by some wireless companies that he said are using the program to offer subsidized wireless services to low-income Americans. “While I recognize that the program does not actually pay for free cell phones, the manner in which some wireless companies provide and aggressively market these prepaid phones to vulnerable consumers is cause for concern,” Pryor said. “These practices create confusion among consumers and, as we have seen, provide fertile ground for those who would abuse this program.” Specifically, Pryor urged the FCC to stop prepaid wireless providers from participating in the Lifeline program, place a hard cap on the FCC’s annual amount of Lifeline support, freeze Lifeline certification for new telecom carriers until a comprehensive review is conducted by the FCC inspector general and study the effectiveness of the current Lifeline program.
In the Feb. 27 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (Vol. 47, No. 10), CBP published two notices that propose to modify rulings and similar treatment regarding the tariff classification of dry suits and reagent kits.
The Court of International Trade dismissed JSC Acron’s challenge of the International Trade Administration’s refusal to conduct an antidumping changed circumstances review of solid fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate from Russia (A-801-811). Acron requested the review to change its AD rate from the 253.98 percent Russia-wide entity rate, assigned while the ITA still considered Russia to be a non-market economy, to an individual market economy rate. After the ITA refused its request, Acron challenged the determination at CIT under 28 USC 1581(i) residual jurisdiction. But CIT said the ITA’s action couldn’t be challenged under Section 1581(i) because residual jurisdiction only applies when no other remedies are available, and Acron could have instead requested an administrative review.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology posts drafts and changes to foreign technical regulations for manufactured products that may be considered technical barriers to trade. Broker Power delays its publication of these postings for 2 - 3 weeks because there is often a delay until NIST makes the text of the regulations available.
China's Ministry of Finance added 44 items Dec. 17 to its Tariff Implementation Plan for 2013, for a total of 8,238 export and import items, according to the official government website. The added items include hydrogen selenide, biological insecticides, refuse incinerators and concrete pump trucks, it said. The changes take effect Jan. 1, according to a statement posted on the MOF website.
The FTC reached a settlement with ad network Epic Marketplace over claims that the company has been “history sniffing,” or using technology to “collect data about sites outside its network that consumers had visited,” in violation of its privacy policy, the FTC said (http://xrl.us/bn4ywj). The agency’s complaint claims that, through deceptive history sniffing, the company was able “to determine whether a consumer had visited any of more than 54,000 domains, including pages relating to fertility issues, impotence, menopause, incontinence, disability insurance, credit repair, debt relief, and personal bankruptcy,” contrary to its privacy policy, which said it would only collect data when consumers visited any of the 45,000 sites in Epic’s network, according to the agency. Epic then assigned the consumer with an interest category, such as “Incontinence,” “Arthritis” and “Pregnancy-Fertility Getting Pregnant,” and targeted ads to consumers based on their assigned interest category. The settlement requires Epic to cease its use of data sniffing technology and delete any consumer data it obtained through that technology, the FTC said. “Consumers searching the Internet shouldn’t have to worry about whether someone is going to go sniffing through the sensitive, personal details of their browsing history without their knowledge,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement. The commissioners voted unanimously to accept the consent agreement package, which will be open for public comment through Jan. 7.