CBP officials gave importers most of the credit for the quicker releases from detention when the government has decided there is no nexus to Xinjiang. In an interview in Boston on early implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, AnnMarie Highsmith, executive assistant commissioner of CBP's Office of Trade, said: "Importers are working harder to be prepared before their merchandise hits the water. They're learning their supply chains. They're simplifying their supply chains. I'd love to say it's us, but it's not. The importers are doing a better job."

A team at Sheffield Hallam University has identified 55,000 companies involved in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), including 3,300 companies operating in textiles and 150 companies where there is "significant evidence of participation in state-sponsored transfer of legal labor," SHU professor Laura Murphy said at a hearing on April 18. The hearing was held by the Congressional-Executive Committee on China titled the "Implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act & the Global Supply Chain Impact."

At a House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee hearing, Democrats talked up their legislative proposals -- two bipartisan, two not -- as answers to confronting China's trade agenda, and expressed skepticism of witnesses' advocacy for ending permanent normal trade relations with China, while some Republicans expressed interest in that approach, and one seemed cautious.

A resolution that would overturn the Biden administration’s two-year delay of antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells and panels from Southeast Asia passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee 26-13 on April 19.

CBP is working on a new, “custom-built” portal for its Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program, including a new dashboard that will give CTPAT users insight into their examination rates and cost savings, said Manuel Garza, CTPAT director. The agency hopes to roll out the portal in phases beginning later this year.

BOSTON -- In breakout sessions on operational perspectives on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the technology that can help importers do UFLPA due diligence, CBP officials acknowledged that it's hard to provide the sort of evidence required to clear an applicability review after goods are detained.

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With a short window for passing customs modernization legislation this year and uncertain prospects after that, it’s important that CBP and the trade community “stick the landing” of the 21st Century Customs Framework initiative and present a united front to Congress when a legislative proposal is submitted by CBP later this year, said John Drake, vice president-supply chain policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Almost half of de minimis shipments last year were covered either by the Type 86 entry test or the Section 321 data pilot program, CBP said, but that doesn't mean that the government has a good grasp on what merchandise is entering in small packages.

CBP is aware that some customs brokers may need additional time to report their employees in the Modernized ACE Portal by the April 14 deadline due to technical issues, the agency said in a CSMS message. Some brokers have “encountered ACE technical issues tied to increased volume of employee reporting,” including “the inability to edit individual employee's information due to an 'invalid page' error and bulk uploads not returning successes even when the data elements are all correct,” CBP said.