An outline of a proposed budget from the president increases money for CBP and trade enforcement divisions at Commerce, while cutting money for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, known as ILAB, the part of the Labor Department that works to identify forced labor risk and help combat it.
Camel Energy’s imports aren't subject to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and its merchandise wasn’t manufactured in Xinjiang, CBP said in a stipulated judgment filed with the Court of International Trade on March 31 (Camel Energy v. United States, CIT # 25-00420).
CBP is no longer actively investigating allegations that cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire is being made with forced labor, the U.S. said in a notice filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 31.
The annual National Trade Estimate, which enumerates hundreds of tariff and non-tariff barriers to U.S. goods and services exports, asserted it would try to "quantitatively assess the potential effect of removing certain foreign trade barriers to particular U.S. exports," but the estimate largely steers clear of estimating the value of lost export sales.
Former government officials from the Biden and first Trump administration said they've been pleasantly surprised by how the government is working to comply with a Court of International Trade directive to refund reciprocal tariffs and stop liquidating entries that include those tariffs.
The Senate passed the Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvest (Fish) Act March 22. It would direct the government to develop a strategy to enforce against illegal and unregulated fishing, and for fishing that involves the use of forced labor, including how to better identify vessels involved in the abuses.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Former U.S. trade officials said the Trump administration could be on its back foot in negotiations with China, as policymakers attempt to preserve a fragile trade truce while pursuing their policy goals.
China and the U.S. described two days of economic and trade talks in Paris as “constructive,” offering a measure of stability amid ongoing tariff disputes, new U.S. investigations and a pending presidential visit now being rescheduled, according to foreign media and pool reports.
The Ecuador-U.S. trade agreement was released March 13 with a long list of products that will receive most-favored nation tariff rate treatment in the U.S., but without information about tariffs on other goods.