The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently received a letter from China’s customs agency about Decree 248, which includes upcoming changes to certain customs procedures for overseas producers and customs registrations, the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service said Oct. 11. Although China hasn’t yet issued implementing regulations for the decree, USDA said the letter includes a “Catalogue of Imported Foods with Historical Trade,” a registration application for overseas manufacturers of imported foods and a sample of a “Competent Authority Conformity Declaration.” USDA said China hasn’t “answered U.S. industry or the U.S. Government questions on the draft measure” but said it expects the measures to be implemented Dec. 31. The letter was originally sent to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing last month.
Vietnam's Customs Enforcement Team, a part of the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, discovered hundreds of boxes of smuggled goods Oct. 6, the state-run CustomsNews reported Oct. 8. Imported by Vietseatrust Food Import-Export Trading, the shipment was declared as having more than 21 metric tons of frozen whole blood cockles (clams) originating from Indonesia. An inspection found hundreds of cartons of undeclared goods such as swallow bird nest, dried seahorses, dried snouted pipefish, some bones, animal horns, auto parts and motorcycles, CustomsNews said.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., introduced a bill that would sanction two Chinese health officials that he says chose not to share information early in the pandemic that could have helped authorities respond. His Oct. 5 press release said, "The sanctions would remain in place until they allow an independent, unimpeded investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a potential origin for the COVID-19 virus." The bill is a companion to a Republican bill introduced in June with 27 co-sponsors.
The United Kingdom launched an online portal Oct. 1 for exporters to access advice from the U.K.'s export support team, the Department for International Trade said. This “one-stop shop” seeks to make it easier for exporters to access advice and support from the U.K. government on shipping their goods to the rest of Europe. This guidance can aid exporters on questions surrounding rules of origin, recognizing professional qualifications and entering new markets, DIT said.
Australia and India on Oct. 1 officially resumed negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), which is expected to boost trade and improve trade rules over standards, rules of origin, and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (see 2108020009). The two countries said they hope to reach an interim agreement by December and complete negotiations on a full deal by the end of 2022.
The U.S. and the European Union agreed to develop “convergent” export controls on sensitive technologies and work more closely on investment screening, the White House said in a fact sheet released after the Sept. 29 inaugural meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (see 2109270027). Although the White House didn’t name specific technologies that could come under more export control or investment scrutiny, it stressed the importance of semiconductor supply chain cooperation and said the two sides agreed to “achieve concrete outcomes by the next meeting.”
A new U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service report outlines Canada’s new and continued 2021 import requirements for U.S. romaine lettuce. The Sept. 27 report details information required with all imports, including the proof of origin, sampling information and testing information. Among the new requirements is a preharvest testing option for the imports, which stipulates that samples must be taken no more than seven days before harvest, and other conditions. The additional import requirements will be in effect from Sept. 30 until Dec. 31, 2021.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined a Texas semiconductor component manufacturer nearly $500,000 for illegally exporting controlled wafers to Russia via Bulgaria (see 2012210013), the agency said in a Sept. 28 order. The company, Silicon Space Technology Corporation, which began doing business as Vorago Technologies in 2015, worked with a Russian engineering firm to export “rad-hard 16MB Static Random-Access Memory (SRAM) wafers,” which were controlled under the Export Administration Regulations for spacecraft and related components.
A rare cuneiform tablet with a portion of the ancient literary work Epic of Gilgamesh was returned to Iraq after a federal district court ordered that retail giant Hobby Lobby forfeit the tablet, the Justice Department said. A repatriation ceremony was held Sept. 23 at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. The tablet originated in Iraq but then was illegally entered into the U.S. by an auction house that then sold it to Hobby Lobby. The retail chain purchased the tablet to display it at the Museum of the Bible, also in Washington, D.C. Law enforcement seized the tablet, which was ordered July 27 to be returned to Iraq (see 2107280028).
Although President Joe Biden’s new executive order authorizing sanctions against Ethiopia (see 2109170036) allows for a potentially broad scope of designations, it also signals that the administration will take a slow, cautious approach to its new authorities, law firms said. Companies shouldn’t expect immediate U.S. action against Ethiopia, the firms said, as the administration seems primarily concerned about deterring bad behavior and assuring humanitarian access can still flow to the region.