A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Dec. 18, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
USMCA
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement is a free trade agreement between the three countries, also known as CUSMA in Canada and T-MEC in Mexico. Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2020, the agreement contains a unique sunset provision where, after six years (in 2026), any of the three parties may decide not to continue the agreement in its current form and begin a period of up to 10 years where USMCA provisions may be renegotiated.
The Office of U.S. Trade Representative asked Mexico to investigate Fujikura Automotive Mexico's factory in Piedras Negras, which it says may be blacklisting workers who were active in the union at Manufacturas VU. Manufacturas VU was the target of two rapid response labor mechanism findings under USMCA, and closed rather than implement the remediation plan that Mexico and the U.S. required it to do to maintain tariff benefits under the pact (see 2310100066).
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
A Mexican garment factory has successfully completed a remediation plan to resolve a rapid response complaint against its factory in the Mexican state of Aguascalientes, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a Dec. 11 news release. The complaint against Industrias del Interior was the first USMCA facility-specific rapid response petition filed in the garment sector, USTR said.
Canadian sugar products require a Canadian Export Certificate at entry under the World Trade Organization rules and USMCA, CBP reminded importers in a CSMS message Nov. 30. It said that entries without an authorized Canadian Export Certificate will be subject to a "high-rate duty."
Asian countries in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and businesses that export to those countries had low expectations for IPEF, and trade experts said it will take years to see if IPEF will have any commercially meaningful outcomes.
Prominent members of the House of Representatives objected to a USMCA panel ruling last week that said Canada's rewrite of its tariff rate quotas for U.S. dairy exports didn't violate the trade agreement (see 2311240002). U.S. farmers thought they would have the opportunity to sell directly to Canadian consumers, but dairy processors in Canada still control access.
A USMCA dispute settlement panel ruled in Canada’s favor in a much-awaited second decision on Canada’s dairy tariff rate quotas, according to a report released by the panel on Nov. 24.
Aluminum trade groups are in disagreement on a trade remedy case on aluminum extrusions, with the Aluminum Association and its Mexican and Canadian counterparts telling U.S., Canadian and Mexican government officials that "the filing of a 15-country trade case, which includes Mexico, by a subsection of U.S. aluminum extrusion producers threatens to overshadow the longstanding coordination and partnership between the aluminum industries in the three countries."
CBP has been threatening ports that it will reduce its presence or even pull out of ports if those ports don't upgrade work space, members of Congress say, and a recently introduced bipartisan bill aims to put a stop to it.