On February 9, 2005, President Bush issued Proclamation 7870 in order to modify the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) rules of origin, specifically the tariff classification rules1 (TCRs) in General Note 12(t) of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS), for certain originating goods from Canada or Mexico.
Harmonized Tariff Schedule
The Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) is a reference manual that provides duty rates for almost every item that exists. It is a system of classifying and taxing all goods imported into the United States. The HTS is based on the international Harmonized System, which is a global standard for naming and describing trade products, and consists of a hierarchical structure that assigns a specific code and rate to each type of merchandise for duty, quota, and statistical purposes. The HTS was made effective on January 1, 1989, replacing the former Tariff Schedules of the United States. It is maintained by the U.S. International Trade Commission, but the Customs and Border Protection of the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for interpreting and enforcing the HTS.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an ABI administrative message stating that in Adm: 05-0018, which listed the ABI system requirements for filing U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement (UAFTA) claims, CBP had erroneously indicated that the Special Program Indicator (SPI) in record identifier 50 is located in positions 79-80. However, CBP states that the SPI in record identifier 50 is actually located in positions 78-79. (See ITT's Online Archives or 01/07/05 news, 05010715, for BP summary of Adm: 05-0018.) (Adm: 05-0170, dated 02/14/05, available at http://www.brokerpower.com/cgi-bin/adminsearch/admmsg.view.pl?article=2005/2005-0170.ADM)
The International Trade Administration (ITA) has initiated an antidumping (AD) duty investigation of certain orange juice from Brazil.
On January 28, 2005, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issued a press release announcing that it has notified the WTO of its intent to increase certain tariffs on certain products from all "column 1" countries because it has not reached agreement with the European Union (EU) over access to the European rice market.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an ABI administrative message announcing that its most recent Harmonized System (HS) update (No. 0501) contains:
The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has issued a press release stating that it has asserted its World Trade Organization (WTO) rights and notified the WTO of its intent to increase certain tariffs because it has not reached agreement with the European Union (EU) over access to the European rice market.
The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has issued a final rule, effective February 14, 2005, to exempt persons (e.g. producers, importers, exporters, processors, handlers, first handlers, feeders, seed stock producers, etc.) from paying assessments for 100% organic products under any research and promotion program administered by AMS, if the criteria of the final rule are met.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted a notice on its Web site announcing that the next Customs Broker License Examination will be held on Monday, April 4, 2005.
International Trade Commission (ITC) sources have confirmed that the ITC has posted a corrected electronic 2005 Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) to its Web site. This new version corrects the PDF formatting problems with the electronic version of the 2005 Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) previously posted to the ITC's Web site.
The 2005 Schedule B is now available on the Bureau of Census' (Census) Web site for browsing and downloading. (Census notes that the 2005 Schedule B search files are currently being processed and will be available at a future date.)