TradeLane

For most retailers, the focus on trade compliance is usually on store merchandise. Most overlook the fact that the compliance of visual merchandise (furniture, lighting, store décor, etc.) is just as important if they are imported from overseas and the company/brand acts as the importer-of-record to those goods.

The dynamics of trade are changing.

Perhaps this is nothing new, trade has always evolved and changed, but I think we would be hard pressed to find an instance in modern peacetime when trade has been asked to adapt so quickly. TPP, Brexit, NAFTA, and steel tariffs, which would have been the biggest stories just months ago, are now muffled background noise to the rhetoric of a Trade War between two of the world’s most important economies.

China Customs has been steadily making changes to the Customs Declaration Form (CDF) in order to better capture the data they believe is important to compliance enforcement and trade policy. This is the fourth major change to the CDF, which was announced in June and went into effect on August 1, 2018.

It’s hard to believe that the Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) program has been available to EU traders for 10 years. The program was originally introduced in January 2008, after six years of planning and development.

So, what else has happened in the last 10 years?

While we wait for the US Administration to work out details on any potential trade deal with the EU, Turkey has moved to the forefront.

Section 232 steel duties on goods produced in Turkey will be doubled to 50% effective August 13^th  with an increase for aluminum duties to 20% still pending. Automobile and automobile parts duty increases are still being contemplated.