TradeLane

On November 27, 2019 Customs uploaded the final version of the new CTPAT Minimum Security Criteria (MSC) into their webpage and the CTPAT Portal. This is the culmination of a three-year effort to update the CTPAT criteria to fulfill legal mandates, adjust to a changing trade landscape, apply lessons learned, and adapt to ever-evolving terrorism and criminal threats.

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.

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.