News & Events

Washington, D.C. – United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced today that the U.S.-Korea trade agreement will enter into force – that is, take effect – on March 15, 2012. This announcement follows the completion over the President’s Day weekend of work by the United States and Korea to review each other’s laws and regulations [...]

Product Duty Rates for Korea, Colombia, & Panama FTAs Available     The International Trade Administration, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the Commerce Department all have useful information regarding the free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama that are awaiting implementation. ITA has a tool that allows users to search each of the [...]

CIT Rules Cosmetics Kits Are “Sets,” May Apply to Other Goods w/ Containers     The Court of International Trade has ruled that Estée Lauder cosmetic kits are properly classified as “retail sets” and not by their individual components, as all the components meet the particular need and specific activity of putting on makeup. The court [...]

CBP Posts Overview of Textiles as a Priority Trade Issue U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an overview of its Textiles Priority Trade Issue (PTI). With textile imports representing nearly half of all duties collected, CBP states that textiles and apparel are at high risk of non-compliance. CBP provides information on the ways it [...]

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which began processing Generalized System of Preferences duty refunds in early December for entries made during the period of January 1, 2011 through November 4, 2011, expects that all refunds for entries that were filed via ABI with the Special Program Indicator (SPI) “A” will be issued by the end [...]

According to press reports, the South Korean legislature on Nov. 22 voted to approve the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Legislation to implement that FTA as well as the trade deals with Colombia and Panama was enacted into law in the U.S. on Oct. 21. As a result, all three pending U.S. FTAs have now been [...]

CBP Ready to Accept New MPF Rate Starting the Morning of Nov 5 U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing that it will be ready to accept the new 0.3464% Merchandise Processing Fee for formal entries (class code 499) on Saturday, November 5, 2011 at approximately 7:30 a.m. CBP states that [...]

On October 21, the President signed into law the three Free Trade Agreements and GSP renewal, which also contains an increase in the Merchandise Processing Fee (.21 to .3464 percent ad valorem). There has been a great deal of confusion about the mechanics of both the retroactive application of GSP and the MPF effective date [...]

The White House press office has issued an announcement that the President will sign the GSP/MPF/TAA bill, as well as the Korea, Panama, and Colombia FTA implementing bills, on Friday, October 21, 2011. FTA bills Both the House and Senate passed the FTA implementing bills on October 12, 2011. The bills were sent to the [...]

On October 12, 2011, both the House and Senate passed legislation to implement the free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama. The bills will now go to the President, who is expected to sign them into law. House Rejected Attempt to Add House China Currency to Colombia FTA Bill Prior to passage of the [...]