U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the materials from its March 6-8, 2012 Trade Software Developer Technical Seminar at the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) meeting. During the seminar, CBP officials discussed programming changes for existing and new functionality scheduled to be delivered as part of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). Access all of the seminar materials here.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is announcing that in approximately 6 months certain ABI applications will be transitioned to ACE as part of the ACE M1 Ocean and Rail Deployment. When this transition takes place, filers will no longer be able to transmit or receive data for the following ABI capabilities using ACS: (1) In-Bond transactions for ocean, rail, and truck using ABI Application Identifiers QP/WP, (2) Status Notifications using ABI Application Identifier NS, and (3) Broker Download information using ABI Application Identifier BD.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced the issuance of Harmonized System Update 2013 on changes to the 2012 Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS). This update was created on March 15, 2012 and contains 11,6214 Automated Broker Interface (ABI) records and 23,379 harmonized tariff records.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued an interim rule, effective March 15, 2012, that amends CBP regulations to implement the customs-related provisions of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KFTA). Comments must be received by May 18, 2012.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has revised and expanded its 2005 “Guidance for Certificates of Reimbursement” for antidumping (AD) duties in order to provide updated information on protests, the option for paperless filing using ACE, and provide additional information regarding blanket certificates, related parties, deemed liquidations, and certificates for companion countervailing (CV) duties.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is requesting comments by May 11, 2012 on an existing information collection concerning the Application to use the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). CBP proposes to extend the expiration date of this information collection with no change to the burden hours or to the information collected.

On March 15, 2012, the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement entered into force. CBP states that the ACS and ACE system changes for filing KFTA entry summary claims are expected to be ready on March 21, 2012, and that CBP will notify the trade via CSMS message when KFTA entry summary claims can be filed using these automated systems.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has not yet completed its programming to allow entry summary claims for Korea Free Trade Agreement (KFTA or KORUS) duty benefits to be filed using the ACS Automated Broker Interface (ABI). In the meantime, CBP sources and the agency's KFTA instructions list several alternatives to use for entry, and well as a post importation claim option (and form). KFTA takes effect for qualifying goods entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption on or after March 15, 2012.