CBP posted answers to set of frequently asked questions Feb. 12 about the withhold release order aimed at goods produced using forced labor in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The Jan. 13 WRO applies to cotton and tomato products produced in China’s Xinjiang province (see 2101130053). The FAQs add some more details for how CBP will be administering the regional WRO, which elicited some logistical questions, given the breadth of order and the number of goods it covers.

Blueberries will escape Section 201 safeguards, after the International Trade Commission on Feb. 11 voted that the domestic blueberry industry isn’t injured by a flood of imports. As a result of the ITC’s negative injury finding, the commission’s investigation will end, and it will not recommend any import restrictions to the president.

CBP's planned addition of partner government agency data functionality for foreign-trade zones (see 1702150037) has moved to the “back burner,” due to automation funding questions, said Jim Swanson, director of the Cargo and Security Controls Division, for Cargo and Conveyance Security, CBP Office of Field Operations. CBP has “reduced funds for programming this year and as a result we are working with retained funds and other funding, but we have our ongoing maintenance needs to continue to work, plus continuing changes that have to be programmed, and that comes out of the base budget for automation,” he said. “So we are not looking at taking on a lot of new causes this year unless they come with a funding package associated with it.” Swanson spoke Feb. 10 during a National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones virtual conference.

President Donald Trump didn't get China to agree to much in the way of structural changes, panelists said, but Asia Society Policy Institute Vice President Wendy Cutler said he put China front and center on the agenda, which was good. “He was really willing to take on the business community when it came to China,” she said. Cutler, who worked at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for more than 25 years, said that when she was at USTR, one of her frustrations in trying to negotiate with China was that U.S. “companies were pretty conflicted. They liked the … money they were making. They wanted us to be quote, unquote tough with China, but they didn’t want to be part of the get-tough strategy. Our hands were tied in a way.”

CBP is expected to officially allow for the use of foreign-trade zones for goods stopped under a withhold release order while an importer works to prove forced labor was not involved in making the imported product, said Christopher Smith, a trade adviser in the Customs Coordination Center for North America for IKEA Purchasing Services. Smith, also a National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones board member, spoke Feb. 9 during a NAFTZ virtual conference. “We believe we are very close to getting a letter in hand allowing for the use of zones to store product while a company will be able to argue whether or not there is forced labor associated with that product associated with a WRO detention,” he said.

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Feb. 1-5 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

For weeks, dozens of container ships have dotted the waters of California's San Pedro Bay, waiting to unload at a port experiencing its highest level of congestion in years. With no space to drop their cargo, the ships sit in limbo, further slowing imports and exports and clogging a global trading system that some shippers view as broken.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., told an online audience Feb. 9 during a Washington International Trade Association conference that the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program will be restored this year, and that the benefits will be retroactive. He added, “I think that for all of its past successes, and I have been a supporter, it needs to be updated to keep us in line with progress as it relates to trade policy.”

A fee paid by BMW of North America to its parent company in Germany to help negotiate prices for car parts from North American vendors is not dutiable under transaction value, CBP said in a newly released ruling dated Dec. 15. BMW's lawyer at Lamb & Lerch asked CBP about the dutiability of the fee.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said the House Advisory Group on Negotiations talked about moving forward with negotiating a United Kingdom trade deal, World Trade Organization reforms, and renewing the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill. The HAGON includes Brady, Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., and three other Ways and Means members.