Year: 2020

Updates with Chinese Trade War

President Trump signed the Phase 1 Agreement with China on January 15, 2020. As part of the agreement, China has pledged to purchase $200 billion worth of goods and services over the next two years – this would be a 50% increase from the current levels. The $200 billion worth of goods and services is broken down into four main categories over 2020 and 2021…

Ambitious Free Trade in 2020 and the African Continent

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a free trade area, outlined in the African Continental Free Trade Agreement among 54 of the 55 African Union nations. The free-trade area is the largest in the world in terms of participating countries since the formation of the World Trade Organization. Nigeria and Benin were the hold outs until July of 2019.

Classification: A Necessary Evil or Helpful Tool?

Determining the correct classification of goods is arguably paramount to any good trade compliance program. However, many companies misclassify their goods at an astonishing rate. While this may be good for business for trade compliance consultants like myself, it isn’t good when it comes time for our client’s Customs audits.

Department of Homeland Security Announces Actions to Combat E-Commerce Counterfeiting

S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data shows that between the years 2000 and 2018, seizures of counterfeit goods at U.S. borders have increased 10-fold, from 3,244 seizures per year to 33,810. In response to this surge, in April of last year, the Trump Administration published its Memorandum on Combating Trafficking in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods…

Updated VSD Policies: How Could this Affect you?

While the United States Trade Representative is currently inundated with Section 301 exclusion requests, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) National Security Division’s (NSD) recent update could be encouraging an influx of voluntary self-disclosures (VSDs) to the U.S. export agencies and the DOJ in the near future.

Japan-US Free Trade Agreement – Not All it Appears to Be

On Jan. 1, 2020 the Japan-United States Free Trade Agreement went into effect. The agreement provides duty-free, or reduced duty treatment, for certain Japanese imports into the U.S. and certain U.S. exports to Japan. The implementation details were printed in the Federal Register on Dec. 30, 2019 (84 FR 72187).

Emerging Technologies Rule-making is Upon Us!

On January 6, 2020, BIS published an interim final rule adding “software specially designed to automate the analysis of geospatial imagery” to the EAR and requiring a license to export and reexport such items to all countries, with the exception of Canada. This rule classifies “software specially designed to automate the analysis of geospatial imagery”