The Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has issued a ruling to increase the assessments on imported cotton and cotton-containing products by 2.64 percent, effective December 16. The increase reflects the increase in the average weighted price of Upland cotton received by U.S. farmers in 2018. The ruling also amends the Import Assessment Table, which indicates the total assessment rate due for each HTS number, to reflect the increases.

The current assessment on imported cotton is $0.011905 per kilogram of imported cotton. The revised assessment in this direct final rule is $0.012222, an increase of $0.000317 per kilogram. Comments on the proposed ruling are due by November 14, 2019.

The United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) has submitted comments in response to the proposed rulings by U.S. Customs and Border Protection requiring customs brokers to collect certain information from importers to enable the customs brokers to verify the identity of importers, including nonresident importers. In the comments, USFIA requests several revisions to the proposed rulings, including that the new regulations apply to all customs brokers relationships and that the final regulation should recognize that many importers belong to CBP programs that require vetting by CBP itself. The comments also ask CBP to reconsider specific requirements that are unnecessarily burdensome and could take away from targeted enforcement issues. The full comments are available here. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a CSMS message on the additional duties the U.S. plans to impose on the EU in response to the aircraft dispute. According to the message, the increase in additional duties will apply to merchandise entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on October 18, 2019.

The full CSMS message and list of products subject to tariffs can be found here.  Remember that a number of apparel items made in the U.K. are affected.   

The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has released The Year in Trade 2018, an annual report on developments related to U.S. trade policies, agreements, and trade laws.   

On China, the report finds that despite increasing tariffs, China remained the United States’ largest single-country trading partner in 2018 with a 3.9 percent increase over 2017. Additionally, in 2018, China remained the largest source of U.S. merchandise imports, accounting for 21.2 percent of global U.S. imports.

The report also explores the developments of USMCA and highlights the language of the text over its predecessor agreement, including new protections for U.S. intellectual property and facilitating digital trade and e-commerce. As USMCA negotiations continue, the trade relationships remain strong. In 2017, Mexico and Canada contributed more to U.S. trade than any other Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners.

The value of U.S. merchandise exports was $1,664.1 billion in 2018, a 7.6 percent increase from 2017, and the value of U.S. merchandise imports totaled $2,541.3 billion, an 8.6 percent increase. Textiles and apparel accounted for $22,717 million total exorts in 2018, an overall percent increase of 2.6 percent from 2017.

Additionally, the report explores the developments of the World Trade Organization, U.S. Free Trade Agreements, and U.S. trade relationships with major trading partners. The full report is available here.