The Senate Finance Committee should resolve the questions on antidumping and countervailing duty enforcement and work to get customs reauthorization legislation to the Senate floor this year, a group of companies and trade associations said in a letter to committee leaders. The Oct. 24 letter was sent to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and emphasized the importance of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Reauthorization Act of 2013 (S. 662), which has stalled over disagreement on how to handle and update AD/CV duty enforcement (see 13040911).
CBP again revoked 38 customs broker licenses it previously revoked and subsequently said were reinstated, said CBP. The licenses were originally revoked on Dec. 6 for failure to submit a 2009 or 2012 triennial report and fee, but were listed as reinstated on Aug. 8 because CBP said those licenses were named by mistake (see 13080720). CBP is now revoking a number of those licenses it mistakenly listed as being reinstated on Aug. 8. "Those brokers were never personally notified that their licenses were reinstated and have not been permitted to practice despite the erroneous publication," said CBP.
The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America will soon be rolling out a new logo and brand mark, said Position:Global, the company that developed the new looks. More information on the logo is (here).
A Los Angeles man was sentenced to 27 months in prison for his role in a duty evasion conspiracy that also brought down former San Diego Customs Brokers Association President Gerardo Chavez, said the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California. Sunil Jiwat Mirwani and his company M Trade were convicted in June of evading customs duties on more than $30 million in Chinese-made wearing apparel, after a one-week jury trial. Mirwani will also have to forefeit $30,000 in cash, and an inventory of over 220,000 pairs of blue jeans valued at over $1 million.
The Mexican lower house approved on Oct. 17 a modified version of a major tax reform, removing provisions that would have applied new taxes on Maquila border factories, according to several law firms and press reports. Other changes from Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s original proposal include higher top income tax rates and a new tax on high-fat foods, according to a report from Bloomberg (here). The reform also changes Mexican customs procedures. The bill now goes to the Mexican senate, with approval expected by that body by the beginning of November, said Reuters (here).
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The proposed emissions standard for formaldehyde in composite wood products would impose a particularly heavy burden on importers, said the International Wood Products Association (IWPA) in comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (here). Import certification requirements in EPA’s proposed rule would make importers do extra work without any real benefit, and the way compliance dates are structured would require importers to get up to speed faster than their domestic counterparts, IWPA said. For both importers and domestic industry, the differences between EPA’s proposal and the existing California standard would add unnecessary costs, it said. And a de minimis exception is also needed for goods like consumer electronics that may include small amounts of wood, said IWPA and other groups (here).
U.S. honey consumers should look for labeling that identifies honey as "True Source Certified" as a way to know the honey is coming from reputable sources, said True Source Honey in a press release. True Source, a joint "effort by a number of honey companies and importers to call attention to the problem of illegally sourced honey," provides third-party audits that certify the source of honey, it said.
The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America's board of directors recently approved 16 new members, the NCBFAA said in a notice on its website. New members include:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Oct. 7-11 in case they were missed.