The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will classify eight Mexican regions for bovine tuberculosis, it announced in a March 3 notice. These are: the state of Sonora as Level II; the Yucatan Peninsula region (states of Yucatan and Quintana Roo, and part of Campeche), the Huasteca region (parts of Puebla, Veracruz and Hidalgo), part of Chuhuahua, and part of Durango as Level III; and part of the state of Coahuila, part of Nuevo Leon and the whole state of Tamaulipas as Level IV. APHIS proposed the classifications in August 2022 with comments due in October (see 2208250048) but said it did not receive any comments. APHIS in March 2022 classified Sonora as a Level I for bovine brucellosis and Canada as a Level I for both bovine brucellosis and bovine tuberculosis (see 2203040021).
Senior U.S. officials and country representatives from the Pacific Islands Forum recently discussed the possibility of allowing eligible members of the PIF to be designated for a regional association for the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, an Office of the U.S. Trade Representative readout of the meeting said. The regional designation “has the potential to further integrate regional supply chains and promote enhanced access to the U.S. market for the developing Pacific Islands states,” the readout said. The U.S. and the Pacific Islands agreed to “a number of follow-up items, which will shape further trade and investment discussions in preparation for the United States-Pacific Islands Trade and Investment Dialogue later this year,” it said.
CBP will add a new feature in ACE that will "support" FDA accepting port of entry changes through the system, it announced in a CSMS message March 2. The changes to ACE will be tested in the ACE certification environment starting March 3, and deployed to the production environment no earlier the April 15, CBP said. CBP and FDA also are having discussions on other options for port of entry changes and will post another CSMS message noting any changes, CBP said in an update March 3.
The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity needs strong commitments on labor rights, the environment and on digital trade, among other items, a coalition of organizations and unions told the Biden administration.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is now requiring two new species to have Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species documentation when being imported into or exported from the U.S., it announced in two public bulletins Feb. 21. The small Reunion swallowtail (Papilio phorbanta) will require CITES documentation starting May 21, and the Palestine viper (Daboia palaestinae), starting May 4, FWS said. Both species were added to the CITES Appendix III species list.
FDA announced March 1 that it's expanding its country-wide import alert on enoki mushrooms to include China, subjecting them to detention without physical examination. The import alert was first issued in July 2022 and applied only to enoki mushrooms from South Korea.
Though CBP's issuance of withhold release orders and forced labor findings has slowed recently as the agency focuses on implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the agency will continue to use its traditional tools to combat forced labor, aided by recent increases in funding for forced labor enforcement, Jessica Rifkin, a customs lawyer with Benjamin England & Associates, said during a webinar Feb. 28.
Ocean freight and rail freight likely will be returning to a pre-COVID pandemic normal by the end of 2023, a logistics executive said at a Feb. 23 conference.
An alliance of more than 25 GSP nations on Feb. 21 called on the U.S. Congress to renew the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program. The program authorization lapsed in December 2020 and has yet to be renewed. The Alliance of GSP Countries includes Pakistan, Egypt, Thailand and Argentina, among others.
The National Legal and Policy Center urged Apple shareholders to vote for a proposal appearing on their proxy ballots that would require Apple to file annual reports to the shareholders on the company's involvement with China. The recommendation came in a Proxy Memorandum sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission Feb. 14.