A “Transfer of Non-Repairable Vehicle to a Demolisher” certificate issued by the District of Columbia, along with a bill of sale, is enough to prove eligibility for export of a used car through the Port of Baltimore, CBP said in a recent customs ruling. Though the exporter did not provide a title for the vehicle, the documents provided “are sufficient to show that the requestor has ownership of the subject vehicle,” CBP said in HQ H308498.
Country of origin cases
The Commerce Department is postponing its Asia Enhancing Development and Growth through Energy (EDGE) Business Development Mission, from March to September, due to the measures taken to curb the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, the agency said in a notice in the March 20 Federal Register. The mission, originally scheduled for March 16-24 and now set for Sept. 14-22, will feature stops in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand in a bid to increase U.S. energy diversification and trade in Asia. Commerce will accept applications for the mission through June 30; it plans to choose 20 firms and trade associations.
The European Union will allow exports of protective medical equipment to additional countries and territories less than a week after announcing it was restricting exports to countries outside the EU (see 2003160047). Export authorizations will be exempt for shipments to Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, the Vatican, Andorra, the Faroe Islands, San Marino and territories that have “special relations” with Denmark, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the EU said in a March 20 guidance. The EU released further guidance detailing the amendment, a “guideline” for the changes and an annex containing templates for export authorization applications and member state notifications. The change took effect March 21.
The European Commission published a draft legal text for a future agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom, detailing a range of trade issues including rules of origin, sanitary issues, technical barriers, customs facilitation and more, the commission said in a March 18 notice. Although negotiations scheduled in London this week were canceled due to the coronavirus response measures, both sides are “exploring alternative ways to continue discussions,” including video conferences, the commission said. It added that “substantive work on the legal texts” will continue in the coming weeks.
The language of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement says that in order for the treaty to take effect on June 1 -- as U.S. officials have told Congress they want -- the countries would have to agree that they're ready 12 days from now. Kenneth Smith Ramos, a former top negotiator of the NAFTA rewrite, said the three countries cannot say they've completed their internal procedures by then. “#NotHappening,” he wrote in English at the end of a tweet in Spanish.
Agricultural exporters and shippers are losing “hundreds of millions of dollars” due to shipping uncertainty and cargo detention penalties caused by the response to the coronavirus pandemic, said Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition. Friedmann was critical of the Federal Maritime Commission, which has yet to finalize a proposed rule issued last year that would provide guidance about how the FMC assesses the fairness of demurrage and detention practices. The rule’s public comment period ended in October.
Many Chinese leather tanneries have applied for and received tariff exemptions from China’s retaliatory tariff on U.S. goods, according to a March 17 emailed alert from the Leather and Hide Council of America. The council also said China is granting tariff exemptions for products beyond what was included in the original announcement that contained nearly 700 U.S. goods (see 2002180039). The U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service issued a March report on China’s step-by-step tariff exclusion guide, providing a translation of the guide to help “familiarize” the U.S. food and agricultural industry with the process. The report contains details on how Chinese companies apply for exclusions, how they document their record of transactions, and what information they must submit to the Chinese authorities. The exclusion process opened March 2.
The head of the Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security revoked a shipping company’s export privileges for 15 years for export violations but ordered a review of the assessed fine, saying it was too high, according to a March 11 order. The company and its chairman -- Singapore-based Nordic Maritime Pte. Ltd and Morten Innhaug, respectively -- were originally fined more than $30 million by an administrative law judge, who also revoked the company’s export privileges until the fine was paid, according to the order. But Cordell Hull, BIS’s acting undersecretary, said the fine was too high, ordering the judge to review its decision to impose the penalty.
Kenya reduced its penalty for importers who violate rules that require imported goods to undergo inspections of their origin countries, according to a March 16 report from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. The change, made last month, reduced the penalty from 20% to 5% of the value of the goods, the report said. The penalty stems from a policy that outlaws importers importing goods without prior inspection in their countries of origin, HKTDC said. Importers are concerned that lower penalties will lead to an influx of imports without prior inspections, which will lead to a backlog of goods awaiting inspection and evaluation at ports, the HKTDC said.
The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of March 16 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):