The customs broker license examination that was scheduled for April 24, 2024, is being moved to May 1, 2024, CBP said in a notice released Dec. 12. The previous date for the exam conflicted with the Jewish religious holiday of Passover, the agency said.
Congress should remove permanent normal trade relations status for China, but rather than move Chinese imports into Column 2, it should create a China-specific tariff schedule "that restores U.S. economic leverage to ensure that the [Chinese government] abides by its trade commitments and does not engage in coercive or other unfair trade practices and decreases U.S. reliance on [Chinese] imports in sectors important for national and economic security," the House Select Committee on China wrote as one of its dozens of legislative recommendations in its "Strategy to Win America's Economic Competition with the Chinese Communist Party." The report, released Dec. 12, also recommended:
National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America President J.D. Gonzalez said the trade group thinks the Customs Modernization Act is heavily focused on enforcement, and the group is "a little disappointed" that some of the items that NCBFAA talked about with Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., didn't find their way into this bill.
Business groups are asking the leaders of the appropriations committees in Congress to support money at the border in a funding request that also includes funding for the war in Gaza and Ukraine. In a letter last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, the National Council of Textile Organizations and the Airforwarders Association said CBP says it needs at least 4,000 more officers. The money in the request would cover 1,000 CBP officers.
A bipartisan Customs Modernization bill would allow CBP to use advance data to enforce customs laws, permit summary forfeiture of certain goods that infringe on intellectual property rights, and allow for streamlined disposition of detained de minimis packages, when CBP did not receive a response from the shipper.
The Customs Modernization bill introduced in the Senate allows CBP to access data from parties in the supply chain other than importers, allows those parties to update and amend their advance data, and authorizes a customs broker or importer of record to convert the pre-entry information into a certified entry filing.
The Economist Newspaper NA intentionally, systematically and unlawfully discloses customers’ private purchase information in violation of Utah’s Notice of Intent to Sell Nonpublic Personal Information Act (NISNPIA), alleged a class action Tuesday (docket 2:23-cv-00878) in U.S. District Court for Central Utah in Salt Lake City.
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.
Wrangling over the federal budget has delayed an announcement of the particulars of phase VII of Lacey Act enforcement, as well as the subsequent six-month countdown until new declaration requirements are enforced, said Erin Otto, part of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Lacey Act team, during a webinar hosted by the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America.
CBP posted the following documents ahead of the Dec. 13 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) meeting: