The U.S. is seeking formal consultations over how Mexico is enforcing laws aimed at protecting the endangered vaquita porpoise and the prohibition on the sale of the totoaba fish, after other discussions did not produce enough progress, officials from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said. These consultations are under the environmental chapter of the USMCA, not the dispute settlement chapter, but if the countries were not able to reach a negotiated settlement, the U.S. could table a dispute that could ultimately lead to tariffs, if the panel ruled against Mexico.

A Corona, California, customs broker was arrested Feb. 10 on a federal grand jury indictment charging him in a scheme to defraud a Japanese variety store. Broker Frank Seung Noah was charged with tax evasion and wire fraud involving customs duties. The indictment says he evaded payment of $1.5 million in taxes and engaged in a $3.4 million wire fraud scheme that overcharged one of his clients, Daiso, the variety store. Noah owned and operated Comis International Inc., a logistics and supply-chain firm that provided customs brokerage services to companies, including Daiso.

CBP is making several adjustments to reduce the impact on trade flows from the ongoing protests on the northern border over Canadian vaccine requirements for truckers, Thomas Overacker, CBP executive director-cargo and conveyance security, said during a Feb. 9 conference call. As part of that, the agency is allowing for diversions and is telling its field offices that "a port mismatch is not grounds for stopping a truck," he said. CBP issued a CSMS message on the subject that said "CBP ports are encouraged to consider maximum flexibility to ensure that legitimate cargo is processed."

A U.S. solar panel manufacturer on Feb. 8 filed another request for an anti-circumvention inquiry on solar cells from third countries made from Chinese inputs, including polysilicon wafers and ingots. Auxin Solar says solar cell imports from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia are circumventing the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China (A-570-979/C-570-980), in a request filed months after a similar petition from a group of anonymous solar producers was rejected by the Commerce Department.

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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., argues that the America Competes Act and the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, the House and Senate legislation to confront economic competition with China, differ in significant ways but have the "same core principles."

The Federal Maritime Commission plans to request comments on the possibility of new demurrage and detention billing requirements, which would seek to address unfair charges and billing practices faced by shippers. In a pre-rule set to be published "soon," the FMC will request feedback on whether it should require carriers and terminal operators to include “certain minimum information” with their billings and whether they should be issued to shippers within a certain time frame.

The Biden administration will allow 1.25 million metric tons of steel to enter under a tariff rate quota, it said Feb. 7, as long as those products are melted and poured in Japan. That would be more than the U.S. imported from Japan in 2019 and 2020, and more than last year -- preliminary data says that the U.S. imported about 989,000 metric tons of steel from Japan in 2021.

The tariff on most imported solar panels will drop to 14.75% at 12:01 a.m. on Feb. 7, and bifacial solar panels will continue to be exempt from the global safeguard, a presidential proclamation Feb. 4 says. The tariff rate quota threshold for solar cells will also double from 2.5 GW to 5 GW, making it unlikely any imported cells will be subject to the tariff.

The House passed its China package, the America Competes Act, on a nearly party-line vote, with one Democrat dissenting and one Republican voting for it. The America Competes Act and the Senate's U.S. Innovation and Competition Act both propose subsidizing American semiconductor manufacturing and both propose investing in science research to better counter China's play for technological dominance, but the House version spends far more money and includes some priorities that the Senate did not, such as $2 billion annually for climate change foreign assistance and a generous reauthorization of Trade Adjustment Assistance. The vote was 221-210.