A potential labor strike at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports this fall is encouraging many retailers to take precautions, such as bringing in merchandise earlier or shifting cargo to West Coast ports, the National Retail Federation (NRF) said last week.

Thirty-five associations are calling for DHS, CBP and Congress to finalize the selection of those who will be serving in this current term of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC), as COAC is short on members by 30% and that lack of a full roster is hindering the committee from fulfilling all the work it would like to do, the groups say.

The Canada Industrial Relations Board determined on Aug. 9 that stopping freight rail service in Canada would not result in an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public. This means that members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) could go on strike as early as Aug. 22 should union members and the two Canadian freight railways, Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) and Canadian National (CN) fail to negotiate a new labor contract.

As CBP deploys measures to ensure de minimis compliance among importers, there are some big-picture items that the agency and Congress need to consider to enable scalability or prevent loopholes, according to Lenny Feldman, managing partner with Sandler Travis.

DHS has added five more entries to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, bringing the total up to 73 entities flagged by U.S. officials for allegedly using forced labor by Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

The Court of International Trade on Aug. 8 said anti-forced labor advocacy group International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) doesn't have standing to challenge CBP's inaction in responding to a petition to ban cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire. Judge Claire Kelly said IRAdvocates failed to show that CBP's inaction "has harmed a core business or diminished any asset."

Chinese seller Jinxiang Lunong Agricultural Trading's sale of dehydrated garlic to U.S. importer Green Food Ingredients isn't “bona fide” first sale that can be used to appraise a transaction, CBP ruled on May 29. This is partly because of how the transaction was structured and invoiced, the agency said.

The Court of International Trade earlier this month heard oral argument on whether a CBP protest denial effectively revoked a prior CBP protest decision by applying a different tariff classification to identical merchandise, and should have been subject to a notice-and-comment period (Under the Weather v. U.S., CIT # 21-00211).

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

Trade associations are generally pleased with the trade facilitation discussion draft issued in the Senate last week (see 2407310037), though they all noted that moving to a true one-U.S.-government data submission and release regime requires money, which may not follow, even if the bill becomes law.