On December 28, 2017, the Defense Acquisition Regulations System, Department of Defense (DoD) published in the Federal Register a final rule [Docket DARS-2017—0017] amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to incorporate revised thresholds for application of the WTO Government Procurement Agreement and the Free Trade Agreements, as determined by the United States Trade Representative. The thresholds are effective January 1, 2018. The thresholds are shown below:
On December 27, 2017, the Federal Register published Proclamation 9687 of December 22, 2017 – To Take Certain Actions Under the African Growth and Opportunity Act and for Other Purposes. The Proclamation:
On September 28, 2017, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published in the Federal Register a final rule [CBP Dec. 17–14] that amends CBP regulations to reflect the extension of import restrictions on certain archaeological and ecclesiastical ethnological materials from Guatemala. These restrictions, which were last extended and revised by CBP Dec. 12– 17, are due to expire on September 29, 2017, unless extended. The Acting Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs, Department of…
On July 14, 2017, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) published in the Federal Register a notice providing country-by-country allocations of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 (October 1, 2017 through Sept. 30, 2018) in-quota quantity of the tariff-rate quotas for imported raw cane sugar, certain sugars, syrups and molasses (also known as refined sugar), specialty sugar, and sugar-containing products.
On May 10, 2017, CBP issued CSMS #17-000270 FTA Origination Analysis and Certification when no Tariff Change Rule (TCR). We quote the CSMS below:
On April 25, 2017, the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) published in the Federal Register a determination that certain woven modal-polyester print fabric, as specified in the Federal Register document,
On December 20, 2016, the Federal Register published Proclamation 9555 of December 2016 – To Implement the Nepal Preference Program and for Other Purposes. Some of the modifications are needed to update the rules of origin in FTAs due to changes in the Harmonized System. The Proclamation modifies the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the US (HTS) as follows:
The Costa Rican Ministry of Foreign Commerce (COMEX) reported that on November 16, 2016, the signing ceremony on the conclusion of the negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement between the Republics of Central America and the Republic of Korea (Tratado de Libre Comercio entre las Repúblicas de Centroamérica y la República de Corea) took place.
On January 2, 2016, the Federal Register published Proclamation 9549 of December 1, 2016 – To Modify the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States and for Other Purposes. The Proclamation modifies the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS) to implement the 2017 Harmonized System revisions adopted by the WCO. The actual modifications are incorporated by reference from Annex I of U.S. International Trade Commission Publication 4653 titled, ‘‘Modifications to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States Under Section 1206 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988.’’
On May 26, 2016, the Department of State published in the Federal Register a document [Public Notice: 9584] announcing that on May 3, 2016, it certified that 14 shrimp-harvesting nations (Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Gabon, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, and Suriname) have a regulatory program comparable to that of the United States governing the incidental taking of the relevant species of sea turtles in the course of commercial shrimp…