New Articles

USTR Suspends Trade Engagement with Burma

burma

USTR Suspends Trade Engagement with Burma

On March 29th, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (“USTR”) announced the suspension of all U.S. engagements with Burma (Myanmar) under the 2013 Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (“TIFA”), effective immediately. Pursuant to this announcement, the United States will be suspending all government-to-government meetings following the military coup that occurred in February and the related escalation in violence by Burma’s military against its people. As a result of the announcement, U.S. federal agencies, including the Office of the United States Trade Representative and U.S. Customs Border Protection (“CBP”), will not be allowed to meet with their counterparts or other government officials in Burma to discuss trade or other issues until a democratic government is re-established.

Significantly, the suspension does not mean the United States is banning or prohibiting imports from Burma. However, we caution that the U.S. has placed sanctions through the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) on a number of Burmese Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) that prohibit business with these SDNs as well as entities meeting certain ownership interests with the SDNs.

Also, as the importing community is aware, the Generalized System of Preferences (“GSP”) lapsed on December 31, 2020. We expect that Congress will pick up GSP renewal later this year. Nevertheless, if/when the GSP gets renewed, Burma may be excluded (again) due to ongoing labor concerns.  If the current military regime is in place when the renewal is under consideration, then we would expect that Burma will be excluded from receiving GSP benefits.

We further believe that it would be prudent for importers to carefully review supply chains involving Burma for labor issues. As companies are aware, CBP has been more active in issuing Withhold Release Orders and this has continued into the Biden Administration with the recent forced labor finding on disposable gloves from Malaysia. For any company relying on goods from Burma, we recommend auditing the supply chain for labor issues and documenting the results.

____________________________________________________________________

Robert Stang is a Washington, D.C.-based partner with the law firm Husch Blackwell LLP. He leads the firm’s Customs group.

psc

Customs Announces Extension of Deadline to File Post Summary Correction (PSC)

Customs has posted CSMS #43528998 (July 31, 2020) reminding the trade community that as per the modification to the Post Summary Correction (“PSC”) procedure announced in the Federal Register on August 14, 2019 (84 FR 40430), the deadline for filing a PSC has been extended in cases where an importer requests and is granted an extension of liquidation pursuant to 19 CFR 159.12.

Under this modified procedure, after an importer is granted an extension of liquidation, a PSC may be transmitted to CBP up to 15 days prior to the scheduled liquidation date as per the liquidation extension.  Accordingly, under the modified procedure a PSC must be transmitted to CBP within 300 days after the date of entry or up to 15 days prior to the scheduled liquidation date, whichever is earlier, except in situations involving an extension of liquidation, in which case a PSC must be transmitted to CBP up to 15 days prior to the scheduled extended liquidation date.

This change was made to increase the amount of time a filer has to submit a PSC in situations involving trade requested extensions of liquidation. Significantly, it may have particular applicability in situations where an importer receives an extension of liquidation in order to preserve its right to a refund in the event that the importer requests an extension of liquidation to accommodate a Section 301 duty exclusion or duty exclusion extension request.

In those instances, if the duty exclusion request or the exclusion extension request is granted, then if liquidation of the entry has also been granted, the importer would have additional time to submit the PSC to Customs and obtain a duty refund. Of course, if the importer misses the time period for submitting a PSC in order to obtain a refund then it is also possible that the refund could still be obtained by filing a protest within 180 days of the date of liquidation.

________________________________________________________________________

Robert Stang is a Washington, D.C.-based partner with the law firm Husch Blackwell LLP. He leads the firm’s Customs group.