March 2020

On Friday, March 20, 2020 Customs announced that it was accepting requests for short-term relief from payment of estimated duties, taxes and fees due to the COVID-19 emergency, as discussed here.

Nevertheless, on March 26, 2020, Customs issued “Additional Guidance for Entry Summary Payments Impacted by COVID-19” that revised the information and

On March 27, 2020, Petitioner Worthington Industries filed a petition for the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of Certain Non-Refillable Steel Cylinders from the People’s Republic of China.

SCOPE OF THE INVESTIGATION

The scope of the imported merchandise that the Petitioner intends to cover in this investigation is as follows:

The

On March 25, 2020, the United States Trade Representative (“USTR”) issued new product exclusions pertaining to the 7.5% Section 301 List 4A Tariffs.  The new list of exclusions includes five 10-digit HTS subheadings and seven specially prepared product descriptions that cover 36 separate exclusion requests.  The full list of excluded products is available here

On March 24, 2020 the New York Field Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued Informational Pipeline  20-001-NYFO concerning Imports of Pandemic Response Materials in response to increased COVID-19 cases in the greater New York City area and across the nation. The Pipeline indicated that many of these shipments are legitimate, but also noted

The Court of International Trade (CIT) issued a decision in TR International Trading Co. v. United States (Slip Op. 20-34) on March 16, 2020, stating that if a company wishes to file an appeal under the Court’s residual jurisdiction under 19 U.S.C. §1581(i), then it must first ensure that it has either filed

UPDATED: March 25, 2020 – Several U.S. executive branch agencies along with federal courts are instituting significant operational changes.  These changes have either already been implemented or are anticipated at the U.S. government agencies and courts which manage international trade-related concerns in the coming weeks due to personnel and public safety concerns over the COVID-19

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) has recently issued two new General Licenses to extend pre-existing authorizations for transactions with GAZ Group that would otherwise be prohibited under OFAC’s Ukraine- and Russia-related sanctions. General License 15H (“GL 15H”) authorizes certain activities necessary to maintenance or wind down of operations or existing contracts

On March 20, 2020, the United States Trade Representative (“USTR”) issued new product exclusions pertaining to the 25% Section 301 List 3 Tariffs.  The new list of exclusions includes one 10-digit HTS subheading that covers one exclusion request and 176 specially prepared product descriptions that cover 202 separate exclusion requests.  The full list of excluded

Short term case-by-case relief to approved importers:  On Friday, March 20, 2020 at 4:52 PM Customs issued the following message:

Due to the severity of  Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will approve on a case by case basis additional days for payment of estimated duties, taxes and fees due to