Sandler Travis managing partner Lenny Feldman said that CBP decided to delay an ACE validation for de minimis shipments to a recipient that would exceed $800 a day, because "they realized when this hits, there's going to be a significant amount of cargo that's going to be above the threshold."
Customs Duty
A Customs Duty is a tariff or tax which a country imposes on goods when they are transported across international borders. Customs Duties are used to protect countries' economies, residents, jobs, and environments, by limiting the flow of imported merchandise, especially restricted and prohibited goods, into the country. The Customs Duty Rate is a percentage determined by the value of the article purchased in the foreign country and not based on quality, size, or weight.
A domestic producer recently filed petitions with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission requesting new antidumping duties on granular hexamethylenetetramine, known as hexamine, from China, Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia, as well as countervailing duties on hexamine from China and India. Commerce will now decide whether to begin AD/CVD investigations, which could result in the imposition of permanent AD/CVD orders and the assessment of AD and CVD on importers. Bakelite requested the investigation.
Questions about how to define date of arrival and when the 15-day window to file a cargo release dominated CBP’s Oct. 1 call with the trade on issues related to the labor strike at U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast ports.
The Commerce Department issued notices in the Federal Register on its recently initiated antidumping duty investigations on corrosion-resistant steel products from Australia (A-602-812), Brazil (A-351-862), Canada (A-122-871), Mexico (A-201-863), the Netherlands (A-421-818), South Africa (A-791-829), Taiwan (A-583-878), Turkey (A-489-855), the United Arab Emirates (A-520-811) and Vietnam (A-552-843), as well as its countervailing duty investigations on corrosion-resistant steel products from Brazil (C-351-863), Canada (C-122-872), Mexico (C-201-864) and Vietnam (C-552-844). The CVD investigations cover entries for the calendar year 2023. The AD investigations on Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates cover entries July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024, and the AD investigation on Vietnam covers entries Jan. 1, 2024, through June 30, 2024.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, in responses to Senate Finance Committee members, talked about changes needed in USMCA, declined to endorse a permanent e-commerce tariff moratorium and called for more money for CBP, to address Section 301 tariff circumvention.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of Sept. 9-15 and 16-22:
CBP released the quarterly IRS interest rates used to calculate interest on overdue accounts (underpayments) and refunds (overpayments) of customs duties. For the quarter that begins Oct. 1, the interest rate for overpayments is 7% for corporations and 8% for non-corporations. The rate for underpayments is 8% for both corporations and non-corporations. That's unchanged from the previous quarter.
While a top CBP official didn't give any specifics on how many brokerages were suspended from a pilot that allows electronic clearance of de minimis packages (see 2405310054), he told attendees at an annual National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference not to "be afraid of that enforcement," as the brokers who were suspended were so lax that there wasn't even anything that the companies could argue about with CBP.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
In August, CBP seized 1,997 shipments that contained counterfeit goods valued at more than $993 million, the agency said Sept. 16 in a monthly update.