Trade and Compliance

Tariffs and USMCA were among the topics discussed during Tuesday night’s presidential debate.

A small business exporter highlighted the benefits she has reaped from de minimis exemptions during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday.

Eternity México recently launched ELIS, a new cloud-based platform to track international freight shipments in real-time between major markets from Asia to Latin America. ELIS (Eternity Logistics Intelligent System) was […]

The Port of Savannah saw container volumes drop from year-earlier levels as the outlook for international trade remains weak. But the fourth largest U.S. port is still seeing some of […]

The action directed by USTR follows discovery of harvested timber in the company’s supply chain.

The working group laid out specific proposals in the areas of labor, the environment, enforcement and pharmaceuticals.

Donald Broughton writes that as goes the freight sector goes the economy in this commentary.

OOCL reported its second quarter 2019 earnings while also announcing that it was canceling several Asia-Europe sailings for a three-month period.

E-commerce packages are flooding the U.S. The vast majority contain legal products, but U.S. Customs and Border Patrol worries about those that contain illegal or dangerous products.

New equipment will allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents inspect up to 50 trucks per hour along the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico.

The Netherlands-headquartered shipping line Universal Africa Lines (UAL) recently added Port Houston’s City Docks to its liner service that connects the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico with West Africa. UAL, […]

Asian city-state Singapore has seen a small fall in container volumes and a more noticeable fall in containerized cargo weights in the first half of 2019 when compared to the same period in 2018. Singapore is a bellwether for world trade volumes and it does a substantial amount of business with the U.S. as well.

Nine participants from the e-commerce sector will provide Customs and Border Protection certain data elements in advance of shipments arriving in the U.S. during the yearlong pilot.

Only 16 days into the job as acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner, Mark Morgan admits that he’s still facing “a bit of learning curve,” but vowed that the agency will continue to work with the trade in a spirit of “transparency, communication and collaboration.”

Trade advisory committee tasked with proposing ways to improve economic conditions in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador will submit report at Aug. 21 meeting.

Among the Democrats voting against the bill were Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, as well as House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon.

A Bureau of Industry and Security official broke the news during the CBP trade symposium this week.

U.S. next day air volumes set the pace for UPS’ second-quarter results

Criminal syndicates are smuggling huge volumes of methamphetamine around the globe by hiding it in the lawful flow of freight. Find out where meth flows, how it flows, and who profits as it flows.

Narrow vote overcomes opposition to Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, which has boosted France’s exports.

Morocco expects to export 200 to 500 metric tons of fresh raspberries to the continental U.S. yearly.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is starting a voluntary pilot Aug. 22 to collect advance data related to e-commerce shipments with import values of less than the $800 de minimis.

Ben Thrower explores the financial and political influence that China is wielding in Panama and around the Panama Canal.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau toured the Port of Montreal with European Council President Donald Tusk.

The new functionality will be available beginning July 27 and will allow the electronic consolidation of informal entry summaries to be processed in the express consignment environment.

The congressional delegation trip caps off an active week on Capitol Hill regarding consideration of the new NAFTA.

Second executive of Casey’s Seafood in Newport News, Va., faces five years in jail and a fine for his role in falsely representing foreign crabmeat as U.S. product.

Eric Hirschhorn, BIS chief during the Obama administration, said interactions with industry when reforming export control regulations are vital and warned the agency needs more resources to carry out its […]

A multilateral steel group mandate was not renewed in Japan, says the deputy director of the National Economic Council during a think tank discussion Wednesday.

The United States is sending an additional deployment of 1,100 active-duty troops and 1,000 Texas National Guard soldiers to the U.S.-Mexico border, Pentagon officials announced July 17. The new active-duty […]

Sherrod Brown and Ron Wyden urge Customs and Border Protection to issue a withhold release order to prevent such imports from entering U.S. commerce.

Calls for the Trump administration to impose trade sanctions against Turkey for its recent purchase of a Russian-made surface-to-air missile system are becoming louder from Capitol Hill.

A record number of Mexican-made vehicles cross the borders to be sold in North American and Asian markets.

Mexican factories exported a record-breaking 1.74 million vehicles worldwide during the first six months of 2019.  The majority of those vehicles – 1.37 million – were shipped north across the […]

A House subcommittee told Tuesday CBP fentanyl seizures thus far in FY19 equal all of FY18.

The World Trade Organization Appellate Body finds against prior U.S. CV duties on China.

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation that would require congressional approval to remove Huawei from the Commerce Department’s Entity List.

An attempt to illegally ship a U.S.-made drill to Iran nets a $300,000 civil penalty and an export denial from the Bureau of Industry and Security.

The president’s executive order sets the stage for higher domestic content requirements for federal procurements and a threshold for iron and steel products.

Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz highlights improvements being made to the World Trade Bridge at the Texas-Mexico border.

“The certainty that comes from having USMCA in place will allow us to continue to invest in manufacturing in the United States with confidence,” says General Motors CEO Mary Barra.

Canada’s freight forwarders are working with the Canada Border Services Agency to test the processes for the country’s new paperless export reporting system, which is scheduled to become the only […]

Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz recently highlighted plans to remodel and expand the World Trade International Bridge, speeding up wait times for the 12,000 trucks crossing the Texas-Mexico border every day.  […]

The president opted instead to direct the establishment of a working group to examine the U.S. nuclear fuel supply.

The U.K. is on the threshold of becoming independent from the EU, but it does not seem to have answers to the trade and logistics nightmare that would follow post-Brexit.

Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins introduced legislation to reauthorize and enhance the functionality of the CBP’s Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Program.

Ben Thrower recently visited the Panama Canal. He writes about the canal’s expansion and what that means to global trade and the maritime industry.

Trade experts tackled the bilateral trade war, which has lasted for more than a year, during a panel discussion Wednesday.

The fake Edison Professional speakers, with a manufacturer’s suggested retail value of $253,572, originated in China and will be destroyed.

Latest incident comes after U.K. arrests ship carrying Iranian crude oil.

The action could result in trade remedies, including tariffs, if the U.S. finds that France is engaging in unfair commercial practices.

Patrick Terminals in Sydney, Australia, shut down for about 19 hours over Monday, July 8 and Tuesday, July 9 after a worker tragically committed suicide.

A week after several international border bridges between the United States and Mexico had to be closed because of the migration crisis, U.S. officials announced migrant border arrests fell 28 […]

Planned for this fall, submission of the report will follow an April presidential memorandum requiring the departments of Commerce and Homeland Security to send a report focusing on the extent […]

Several stakeholders, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, had called for a vote before the August recess.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said China’s pursuit of U.S. military-grade technologies “cannot be tolerated and we are updating our export control policies to account for this very real threat.”

USTR has called for South Korea to improve its procedures for competition hearings held by the Korea Fair Trade Commission.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control took PB Tankers and its six tankers off the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List after three months.

The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said it’s become increasingly concerned that South Korea’s export controls are insufficient for certain “sensitive items.”

Longshoremen around Australia are walking out on the job for two-, three- and four-day strikes in the latest collective employment dispute. A series of work bans on overtime and shift extensions is also now in effect.

The Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled on Wednesday to mark up a bill that would establish a blockchain working group aimed at determining potential applications for blockchain, including in federal […]

Charger Logistics’ new state-of-the-art facility in Laredo is up and running. The company aims to double its business in Mexico and grow overall capacity by 200 trucks and manage 600 […]

More than $400 billion in freight crossed in both directions through the United States-Mexico border by truck in 2018. In Laredo, Texas, alone, more than two million trucks carried goods […]

The Justice Department said Yi-Chi Shih illegally exported military-grade semiconductor technology to China.

Sanctions, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and Section 232 will be among the topics covered.

Mark Morgan, formerly acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, succeeds John Sanders.

Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists in Port Manatee, Fla., discovered the potentially destructive pest in a shipment of malangas from Mexico.

It may have gotten lost in the United States’ trade war with China and immigration battle with Mexico, but President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum […]

It’s taken more than 20 years, but the mandatory automated submission of in-bond information to CBP via the Automated Commercial Environment starts July 29.

The agreement provides for information exchange and better enforcement of customs laws in both countries.

U.S. companies eager to rekindle their exports with the beleaguered Chinese telecom Huawei should expect the unexpected, 40-year export control consultant says.

Gemini Shippers Group, a non-profit shippers association that is nearly 100 years old, has joined the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA). Read about Gemini and why it has joined BiTA.

The West African country will join a list of countries eligible to trade in rough diamonds under the Clean Diamond Trade Act.

Customs and Border Protection will refund all cash deposits of estimated countervailing duties collected on those shipments.

Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau published separate notices of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register on Monday.

After the threat of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, Mexican freight transporters  are now facing a new challenge with an anti-immigration checkpoint in Ciudad Juarez that is stretching wait times up […]

Cloud-based supply chain solutions provider E2open has completed its acquisition of Amber Road by purchasing outstanding shares.

The Justice Department said a California man will face trial in a Los Angeles federal court for his alleged role in the illegal export of cesium atomic clocks to Hong […]

The imposition of any tariffs depends on whether a WTO arbitrator determines the U.S. may take countermeasures.

Brian Aoaeh has written a thought-provoking commentary on the impact of climate change on supply chains, and what governments, companies and startups can do to mitigate supply chain disruptions.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has started taking applications this week to fill new agriculture specialist positions in ports of entry throughout the country.

The Bureau of Industry and Security removed the Chinese entities from the Unverified List after verifying their bona fides during end-use checks.

Jim Blaze writes about the movement of grain by rail. This is a huge business for U.S. and Canadian railroads, and is also critical to the export market of the two countries.

Cathy Roberson writes about Vietnam’s growth as a manufacturing center as manufacturing moves from China to other nations in Southeast Asia.

Customs is using the pilots to get more information on nontraditional supply chain actors, a senior CBP official said during a conference last week.

The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission has received 17 license applications and changes for review. The FMC received non-vessel-operating common carrier license applications from CJ Services International Corp., Doral, Fla. (Carla […]

The U.S. and China habve agreed to resume trade talks, a break in the nearly 2-month stalemate which has affected trade flows and spawned uncertainty among businesses

Nations in South East Asia are experiencing plunging trade and stumbling economies, analysts say, and they add it is due to a weakening Chinese economy and trade war tensions.

The Global Trade Barometer released Thursday “clearly illustrates why trade disputes create no winners,” said DHL Global Forwarding, Freight CEO Tim Scharwath.

There have been positive signs from both Democrats and Republicans regarding the trade pact’s prospects of passage, attorneys said during a conference on Thursday.

Generic corn and wheat futures are up nearly 30% since May 10 on depressed yields and constrained transportation in the Midwest.

The bill, introduced in the House Tuesday, would limit new or additional tariffs imposed by the president to 120 days unless approved by Congress.

It’s important for all U.S. companies to invest the necessary resources into compliance oversight on the front end to prevent regulatory violations from occurring.

Solid growth in China’s cargo throughput has been revealed in newly published data. No doubt about it – the country’s cargo volumes are growing.

John Sanders, who had led U.S. Customs and Border Protection in an acting role since mid-April, will depart the agency on July 5.

A coalition of interest groups held a “day of action” on the trade pact as lawmakers heard testimony regarding Mexico’s recently passed labor reform legislation.

An additional $300 billion in proposed U.S. tariffs against China could result in lower railroad freight volume , but economic uncertainty and competition from trucks appear so far to be bigger threats for rail volumes.