Congress Passes Miscellaneous Tariff Provisions and Other Changes to Trade Laws
Congress last week passed pension legislation that also included a number of significant international trade-related provisions, including passage of a number of duty suspensions. The bill will be sent to the President for signature. H.R. 4, the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which the Senate August 3rd and House on July 28th, included the following trade-related provisions:
Section 1632 suspends the availability of bonds to new shippers in antidumping cases. This provision requires that through June 30, 2009 U.S. importers of any merchandise subject to antidumping duties from new shipper must post a cash deposit to cover the total estimated duties instead of a bond. This provision was added because collecting antidumping duties on agriculture and aquaculture products from China has become a special challenge for U.S. customs officials since final antidumping duties are not calculated for 18 months or more after the import date.
Section 1634 makes several change to CAFTA-DR by giving duty-free access through 2007 to imports of certain clothing from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua not included in the original agreement, including apparel made with fabric from third countries.
Section 1635 makes several technical changes to U.S. customs law.
The bill also includes a number of duty suspension provisions, which, among other things, extended through 2009 the suspension of duties on ceiling fans, for certain fabrics made from worsted wool and for liquid crystal device panel assemblies for use in televisions. The bill also extended the suspension of duties through 2010 for nuclear steam generators, reactor vessel heads and pressurizers purchased under contract on or before July 31, 2006. H.R. 4 also suspends certain other miscellaneous tariffs that were passed in a different House bill and introduced but not passed in the Senate.
|posted by Douglas N. Jacobson| Permalink 
