Rep. Earl Blumenauer,D-Ore., chairman of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, want to pass a law that would require importers of certain commodities to first certify that they exercised reasonable care that the products they are buying were not produced on illegally deforested land. If the goods -- such as palm oil, soybeans, cattle, cocoa and rubber -- are coming from a country that the government designated as high-risk for illegal deforestation, importers will have to fully document their supply chains and the measures buyers took to ensure it was not produced on deforested land.

Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said that while what he called the "food fight between Democrats" is preventing legislation from moving this year, "this next year would be an opportune time to have a conversation about [Section 232 reform] in a bipartisan way." Brady, who was responding to a question during a call with reporters Oct. 6, said he'd like to be a part of that conversation about the use of national security tariffs and Congress's role in setting tariffs.

Gluten-free pastas made from soybean flour are classifiable in the tariff schedule as pasta of heading 1902, rather than as soybean preparations of heading 2008, said CBP in a recent ruling. Instructing the port to grant the importer’s protest, CBP headquarters ruled that pasta describes food that has undergone a particular manufacturing process, and is not limited to a specific kind of flour.

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Sept. 27 - Oct. 1 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

One measure of how much more common detentions over forced labor have become is that the withhold release order affecting cotton grown in Xinjiang has led to either the detention or diversion of more than 1,000 shipments, said Nate Herman, American Apparel and Footwear Association vice president for policy. Herman said the value of the garments or textiles in those shipments added up to hundreds of millions of dollars, "probably over a billion dollars at this point and only a handful of them have been released, maybe a dozen, maybe a little bit more."

Shine Shipping and Shine International (Shine), companies that arrange for the shipment of goods with vessel operating carriers, were found not to be directly liable for the shipment of counterfeit Nike footwear by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in a Sept. 30 opinion (Nike, Inc. v. B&H Customs Services, Inc., et al., S.D.N.Y. #20-01214).

CBP plans to begin a global business identifier “Evaluative Proof of Concept (EPoC)” meant to explore possible replacements for the manufacturer identification codes, the agency said in a notice. “By testing the identifiers CBP will take its first step in determining whether to amend regulations to mandate the GBI solution,” it said. “Furthermore, CBP will understand the utility of collecting and/or combining the identifiers’ data and will be able to make an informed decision on whether to mandate the use of the GBI solution as an alternative” to the MID code.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments on whether it should reinstate hundreds of Section 301 product exclusions that expired either late last year or early this year. The public docket at https://comments.USTR.gov will open Oct. 12, and parties can submit comments until Dec. 1. The agency is asking that commenters not only weigh in on specific products, but also on how long the exclusions should last.

The rollout of the new China trade policy looks a lot like the old China policy, with a new chance at Section 301 exclusions and all the tariffs remaining for now. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai suggested during the speech on the results of the China policy review that she doesn't have much hope for getting more structural reform that the phase one China agreement did not secure.

A Section 301 investigation into illegal timber trade in Vietnam will result in no tariffs on Vietnamese goods, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said Oct. 1. Many stakeholders argued against a punitive approach on the issue (see 2011160027), including groups that fight the harvest of rare wood, such as the Sustainable Furnishings Council and the Environmental Investigation Agency.