The National Marine Fisheries Service issued notice that it has made comparability findings for several Mexican fisheries located in the Upper Gulf of California for shrimp, sierra, chano, curvina and sardines. Though the findings will remain in effect until Jan. 1, 2022, provisions of the NMFS Marine Mammal Protection Act regulations requiring comparability findings prior to import do not take full effect until that date (see 1803160035), so even fish from fisheries not yet found to be comparable may be imported. NMFS will have to renew these comparability findings for imports from these fisheries to remain eligible once the comparability rules take full effect.
The Commerce Department will hold public testing sessions Dec. 6-7 in Washington as part of its development of an online portal to handle requests for exemptions from Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum products, it said in a notice. Once the portal is established, the portal will replace the current process on regulations.gov, “streamlining” the exclusion process by using web-based forms and allowing users to view and track exclusion requests, objections and rebuttals in a single system. Commerce intends to transition to the new portal “sometime in late 2018 to early 2019,” it said. Before it does, the agency will issue amendments to its Section 232 regulations and allow for public comments on the new process. Requests to participate in testing should be submitted by email by Nov. 29. Remote testing will not be available, and participants must pay their own travel costs to Washington. Only citizens and lawful permanent residents of the U.S. will be eligible to test. Participation will be capped at 36 people, with priority given to those that have submitted documents related to Section 232 exclusion requests.
The Foreign-Trade Zones Board issued the following notice for Nov. 23:
The Foreign-Trade Zones Board issued the following notice for Nov. 16:
The U.S.-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council scheduled its 2018 stakeholder event for Dec. 4-5 in Washington, the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration said in an email. The event will bring "together senior regulatory officials, industry, and other members of the public from both sides of the U.S-Canada border. Canadian and U.S. regulators will provide progress reports on existing regulatory cooperation efforts and solicit public input on new opportunities for regulatory cooperation," Commerce said. Commerce posted a registration link and an agenda.
The Foreign-Trade Zones Board issued the following notice for Nov. 15:
The Foreign-Trade Zones Board issued the following notice for Nov. 14:
The changes to the Section 232 aluminum exclusion process described in an interim final rule from the Commerce Department have not yet improved the process, The Aluminum Association said in its comments submitted Nov. 13 on that interim final rule. Decisions have only been made on about 20 percent of the published exclusion requests, and there are still requests published six months ago that haven't gotten an answer. "While the number of requests, objections, rebuttals and sur-rebuttals in the aluminum docket are far lower than the steel docket, the requests -- as well as objections and rebuttals -- are still difficult to monitor" because there's no adequate tracking system. Users can't search on HTS code, country of origin or the type of alloys -- they have to open every single file, the trade group noted.
Investors were worried about the fate of NAFTA and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement when they were "works in progress," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Nov. 13. "And I think people in general think they turned out very, very well." So, Ross told an interviewer at Yahoo Finance's All Markets Summit, investors shouldn't lose confidence in the president's trade policy with China "because they're afraid of the unknown." He noted that Chinese negotiators are probably visiting Washington ahead of the G-20 summit, when the U.S. and Chinese presidents will talk about trade. But he cautioned that the problems with China are structural, and so won't easily be solved.
The Foreign-Trade Zones Board issued the following notice for Nov. 9: