CBP released a draft version of its business process document for Electronic Export Manifest and is hoping to get feedback at the CBP Trade Symposium in Chicago, the agency said in an email. "If you plan to attend the Exports Modernization Feedback Session on Wednesday, July 24, we are asking participants to be prepared to provide feedback on the attached CBP draft Electronic Export Manifest Business Process document," the agency said. "CBP is interested in hearing your feedback during the session."
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned a “network of front companies and agents involved” in procuring enriched uranium for Iran’s nuclear program, Treasury said in a July 18 press release. The entities and people are based in Iran, China and Belgium and worked as a “procurement network” for Iran’s Centrifuge Technology Company, which produces centrifuges in facilities belonging to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Treasury said.
Vietnam's General Department of Customs announced several investigations into origin fraud after it discovered foreign companies “taking advantage of Vietnam origin to export to third countries to enjoy preferential treatment,” according to a July 17 report from Customs News, the customs agency’s mouthpiece. The country’s customs is investigating “six large enterprises operating in import and export of wood” products related to China, the report said. Authorities have found several customs violations relating to rules of origin, including companies using a “certificate of fake land use in the document to prove materials are produced in Vietnam.” In one case, Vietnam discovered a company “imported thousands of products from China” but recorded the production in Vietnam, the report said.
The U.S. lost its appeal of a 2018 World Trade Organization decision that it had not properly calculated countervailing duties for Chinese pipes, tubular goods, solar panels, aluminum extrusions and other items. China had originally challenged the cases in 2016 -- the cases were brought between 2007 and 2012 (see 1805010071). The earlier ruling held that the U.S. was right to say that Chinese state-owned enterprises count as "public bodies" and therefore their actions can be market distorting. The appeal upheld that element of the case, but also upheld the victories for China. The WTO said that Commerce did not prove specificity in the subsidies for the products, and it also could not show how the SOE inputs distorted market prices. It was not allowed to use other countries' prices as reference points to prove market distortions, the WTO said, unless it had specific evidence that government interference in the market warranted that. The appeal said that countries' ability to use other countries' prices in CVD cases is "very limited."
Global export controls and international sanctions are not stopping luxury goods from entering North Korea, which is employing a significantly larger smuggling scheme than previously known, according to a July 16 report from the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (CADS), a nonprofit research organization in Washington. The 56-page report details how North Korea works with intermediaries, freight forwarders, private financiers and others to smuggle luxury goods into the country. The report also places North Korea’s smuggling system into context: Between 2015 and 2017, at least 90 countries “served as luxury goods procurement sources” for North Korea, the report said.
Vietnam’s prime minister ordered the country’s government to find ways to expand trade relations with its “key partners,” including by “removing barriers” to entry into the country of foreign investment, according to a July 15 report from Vietnam's Customs mouthpiece Customs News. At a July 13 government meeting, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc heard reports of the country’s assessment of trade relations between Vietnam and several “big partners,” including the U.S., China, South Korea, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Japan. The country is aiming to “build sustainable and balanced trade relations with partners, to combat trade frauds, and fraudulence of goods origin,” the report said. The prime minister asked Vietnam’s ministries to introduce new policies related to “trade, monetary matters, finance-banking, IT and cyber security in order to match with advanced international standards,” the report said.
Britain is offering to release Grace 1, the seized Iranian oil tanker, if Iran can provide proof the ship is not transporting oil to Syria, United Kingdom Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt said July 13. The ship was originally seized by Gibraltar Port and Law Enforcement on July 4 after British authorities suspected it of shipping oil to Syria, which would have violated European Union sanctions (see 1907080022). The ship was seized in Gibraltar territorial waters.
The House passed on voice votes July 11 three amendments aimed at addressing concerns about Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE for inclusion in the chamber's version of the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 2500). One, led by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., would impose conditions for the Department of Commerce to be able to lift the Bureau of Industry and Security's addition of Huawei to its Entity List that would impose export restrictions on the company, including a finding that Huawei and its executives haven't violated U.S. or United Nations sanctions and haven't engaged in theft of U.S. intellectual property during the preceding five years. Acting Commerce Undersecretary for Industry and Security Nazak Nikakhtar said on July 9 the department is reviewing export license applications to sell to Huawei in order to “mitigate as much of the negative impacts of the entity listing as possible” and hopes to have decisions “soon” (see 1907090068).
The Commerce Department is planning to issue multiple guidance documents on its blacklisting of Huawei Technologies due to the large number of questions from U.S. exporters, Commerce officials said during the Bureau of Industry and Security's annual export controls conference July 9-11 in Washington. Officials said the guidance will address the most common questions BIS has received from U.S. industries.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for July 1-5 in case they were missed.