More commenters on NAFTA renegotiations pushed for the U.S. to protect development of ACE and a North American single-window system in any updated agreement. The American Association of Exporters and Importers said in comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (here) that NAFTA should allow electronic signatures for the certification process in all three parties. The signature should be generated by software identifying and authenticating the signer and confirming the signer’s approval, AAEI said. “Acceptance of this type of electronic signature is distinct from NAFTA’s current and outdated practice of requiring certificates that are either hand-signed or that include an electronically reproduced image of an original handwritten signature.”
CBP issued the following release on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP will add Manufacturer ID (MID) creation, in addition to electronic form 214 application for foreign-trade zone admission (see 1706120054), to ACE in late August, a CBP spokeswoman said. "We plan to have both capabilities available for trade testing in the Certification environment in late July," she said. "There will be additional features deployed to facilitate the decommissioning of the mainframe."
Duty deferral provisions within NAFTA should be left out of any updated deal, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America said in comments to the U.S. trade representative (here). Under NAFTA, some products processed in the U.S. "require a special deferral entry to be filed with duty payment to CBP" when exported to Canada or Mexico, the group said. "This special entry and duty payment would not apply if the same shipment were exported to any other country outside of NAFTA" and therefore "hinder U.S. exports to Mexico and Canada," the group said. The NCBFAA comments were in response to a USTR request for public input on how it should update NAFTA.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for June 5-9 in case they were missed.
CBP updated its information pages on ACE (here) following the agency's announcement that it will require the use of ACE beginning July 8 for drawback and duty deferral entries and entry summaries (see 1706070042). The agency updated its specific pages for drawback (here), duty deferral (here), reconciliation (here), statements (here) and liquidation (here).
CBP plans to deploy foreign-trade zone capabilities in ACE at the end of August, it said in a June 9 CSMS message (here). The agency has told the Trade Support Network that it plans to deploy its electronic form 214 application for FTZ admission in ACE on Aug. 20, with the capability available for testing a month earlier in the certification environment, on July 20, said Celeste Catano of BluJay Solutions. The CSMS message was issued to announce new information in the latest version of the FTZ CATAIR chapter. CBP did not immediately comment.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
Foreign currency exchange rates and a related query function will no longer be available in the ACE Automated Broker Interface as of July 8, CBP said in a CSMS message (here). The agency is instead directing filers to its exchange rate webpage (here), which includes PDF and XLS versions of exchange rate multipliers “easily downloadable for use by trade.”