GSP Program Review Results in Changes to Covered Products and Countries
Kate Benner

In late September, the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced the outcome of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) Limited Product Review. GSP offers duty-free treatment for designated imports from 122 developing countries. The review found that Seychelles, Uruguay, and Venezuela had surpassed the income threshold to be beneficiary countries and will be phased out of the program beginning January 1, 2017. Seychelles will also lose eligibility for preferences under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which requires GSP beneficiary status.

Other changes include duty-free treatment for five upland cotton fiber products and the re-designation of three Ukrainian products and one Indonesian product as GSP eligible.

The GSP program previously expired on July 31, 2013, but was reauthorized earlier this year as part of the Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015. The extended GSP Program is valid through December 31, 2017, and Congress made the extension retroactive back to July 31, 2013.

Customs and Border Protection Issues Updates on Enforcement of Trade Orders
P. Lee Smith

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) belatedly released its fifth and sixth AD/CVD Updates. As explained in the January 2015 edition of the Trade & Manufacturing Alert, the AD/CVD Update is part of CBP’s outreach efforts and a way to publicize CBP's progress on this Priority Trade Issue. Similar to past AD/CVD Updates, these updates highlighted select enforcement activities conducted by CBP. In particular, CBP highlighted its ongoing efforts to pursue penalty cases under 19 U.S.C. 1592, noting that it had issued 11 penalties in Fiscal Year 2015 in its fifth AD/CVD Update. In the sixth update, CBP reported that the federal government filed a lawsuit against a California plastics company to collect $1.5 million in penalties for misclassifying retail carrier bags as merchandise not subject to AD/CVD duties.