The Seattle port became the newest addition to the Simplified Entry (SE) pilot program, receiving its first SE on Aug. 14, CBP said Aug. 15. CBP recently announced its plans to expand the pilot to other ports and participants and to revise applicant criteria. CBP said the "expansion to the ports of San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles will follow soon thereafter. A subsequent expansion to the south and southeast, including Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston and Miami, will happen in mid-September, to be quickly followed by an expansion to the northeast including Newark, New York/JFK and Boston."
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:
The federal government, in the form of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has begun acting on alleged copyright infringers at the behest of copyright owners in the recent past, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in response to the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator's (IPEC) request for comment on the administration's IP enforcement strategy. "The records suggest that [ICE] and its attorneys are effectively acting as the hired gun of the content industry at the taxpayers' expense," the letter said. "Instead of relying on rightsholders to determine whether a seizure was appropriate, the government should have been conducting its own thorough investigation."
CBP will soon launch a pilot test of the Importer Self-Assessment Pre-Certification Program (ISAPC) that will allow CBP-certified customs brokers to screen and vet applicants to CBP’s ISA program, the agency said in a report on the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC) Role of the Broker Subcommittee. The report was released ahead of the Aug. 15 COAC meeting in Seattle. According to CBP with ISAPC, eligible ISA applicants will be approved for the program in 90 to 120 days rather than 9 to 18 months. The CBP Role of the Broker report is (here).
CBP issued its Aug. 15 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 46, No. 34), which contains 4 notices of the following ruling actions:
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to CBP's website Aug. 13, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching on the listed CBP message number at http://addcvd.cbp.gov. (CBP occasionally adds backdated messages without otherwise indicating which message was added. ITT will include a message date in parentheses in such cases.)
CBP issued its weekly tariff rate quota and tariff preference level commodity report as of Aug. 13. This report includes TRQs on various products such as beef, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa products, and tobacco; and certain BFTA, DR-CAFTA, Israel FTA, JFTA, MFTA, OFTA, SFTA, UAFTA (AFTA) and UCFTA (Chile FTA) non-textile TRQs; etc. Each report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, BFTA, DR-CAFTA, CBTPA, Haitian HOPE, MFTA, NAFTA, OFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA TPLs and TRQs for qualifying textile articles and/or other articles; the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics; etc.
CBP Miami sent out a trade information notice to say the office of the CBP Miami Port Director Roland Suliveras moved to the North Terminal of Miami International Airport. The Assistant Port Director for Agriculture, Michael Wright, and other administrative staff also moved, the notice said. The phone number for the new office is (786) 476-3100, while the mailing address remains the same. Email documents@brokerpower.com for a copy of the notice.
CBP posted an Aug. 6 version of its CF 1400 (Record of Vessel in Foreign Trade Entrances) electronic query report of the Vessel Management System (VMS), in accordance with 19 CFR 4.95, organized by entrances. CBP also posted a version of its CF 1401 (Record of Vessel in Foreign Trade Clearances) electronic query report of the VMS, in accordance with 19 CFR 4.95, organized by clearances.