Customs Law

I realize I have been gone for a while. The first Trump Administration generated enough compliance work, litigation, and general chaos to keep me too busy and too stressed to do many things. One such thing was writing this blog. I did it mainly because I enjoy the process, and it forced me to stay on top of cases from the Court of International Trade and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Explaining those decisions in what I intend to be an approachable style helped me understand them. Over the past year, I have at times considered restarting the blog and never found the time or inspiration. Apparently, that has changed.  You may have noticed that the second Trump administration is off to a fast start in the trade space. We have new 10% tariffs on goods from China and 25% tariffs on an expanded list of steel and aluminum products. The 232 exclusion process has been shuttered. Reciprocal tariffs are being floated, as are potential tariffs on cars, pharmaceuticals, and chips....

 Hello Follow by Email subscribers. I am told that the FeedBurner service is going into maintenance mode soon. It appears it will stop sending emails of this glorious feed. I will look for another solution. In the meantime, the easiest way to see new posts is to follow me on Twitter @customslawblog. I almost always let the world know of new posts there. 

This will be the last post of 2018. It was not a good year for the Customs Law Blog. It was a good and difficult year for customs lawyers and equally so for importers. 2018 gave us 232 duties on steel and aluminum products and a poorly implemented exclusion process. We also saw 301 duties imposed on billions of dollars of goods imported from China, plus a slightly better exclusion process. To make the year just that much more unpredictable, importers and exporters faced numerous threats by the US to withdraw from NAFTA and the release of the text of a substantially new North American free trade deal. All of that, and other factors, kept me from being able to update the blog as often or as substantively as I would have hoped. I hope you are all reading my Twitter feed to keep up with me and my short updates. I am forever grateful to the readers of this blog. I appreciate your feedback and hope to continue to have opportunities to meet in real life at trade events throughout the year...

There is a chance I will soon see a gap in my schedule large enough to write a post or two. It could happen. I'm not promising, but it could. There are several Court of International Trade decisions to discuss. We also have a new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that we will not call NAFTA; it is the United States Mexico Canada Agreement. The only pronounceable word I can get from that is "UnMexiCan." That does not seem good for political marketing in Mexico. I hope to give some highlights of that agreement here. You may also have noticed that today was the deadline for filing exclusion requests from the first round of Section 301 duties on goods from China. That, and 232 duties, is a significant part of why I have had my head down.

I am back in the mix for the Expert Institute legal blog competition. Do me a favor and vote here .

Thanks to everyone at ICPA who stopped by to tell me that they read the blog. I don't always pay close attention to the site analytics and I don't have particularly good visibility of who is visiting. Seeing you all in real life is very encouraging. Keep reading. See you in San Diego.

This is one of those posts in which I tell you that there are many cases and rulings sitting on my desk, all of which I plan to use as the basis for upcoming blog posts. It is also the end of the year and the time when I contemplate the state of this blog. [Note: Shaking my fist at the ABA Journal ] This has been a good blog year, despite having fallen behind on my coverage of rulings. My personal view is that the content remains of acceptably high quality combined with it usually being timely. So that's good. I did earn recognition from the Expert Institute ; fifth place out of a large field is not too bad. Thanks for your votes. I'll continue to plug along here and hope you stay with me in an 2017. As always, I sincerely appreciate my readers. At the recent Court of International Trade Judicial Conference and at a trade meeting in Chicago, folks introduced themselves as readers. That always makes me happy. I hope to see more of you at upcoming events. Feel free to comment o...

Two days left to vote for my work blog in the Best Legal Blog contest . Because I learn from current events, I would like to modify my previously friendly and polite pitch. This blog contest is rigged. The IP lawyers and immigration lawyers are out to get me. Lawyers from big firms in NY and Washington are sneaking in, pretending to be niche boutiques, but they are really old, tired, losers with no stamina. My blog is the best, the best. It bigly covers import law, which really is the most important law. I know customs law like no one else. I just do. If you vote for me, you'll see, it will be great. I will win because that's what I do. I will make my blog great again and that will make you all great again. Who will pay for that? Mexico, that's who. Vote here .

I received an email telling me that this blog is in the running for some kind of recognition among legal blogs in niche or specialty practices. To win, I need readers to vote. So, please do me a solid by visiting this site  and voting for my blog. You'll need to navigate down the page to find The Customs Law Blog. Then click the image of the blog. That will take you to the voting page. Thanks. And, watch this space for a review of a case from the Supreme Court of Canada and some developments involving the False Claims Act.

Once upon a time, there was the Customs Law Blog. It was a happy place where the Blogger diligently provided useful and occasionally entertaining updates to his readers, all of whom he liked very much. But sometimes things did not go as planned. Sometimes, the Blogger needed to work. Even when "work" is mostly planning a big party for some visiting lawyers, talking to trade groups, and finishing a new version of his text book,  there is still real work to do for people who pay real bills. That leaves the Blog and its loyal readers with nothing new to read. That is, until the Blogger finds time. "Don't give up loyal readers," says the sad and tired Blogger, "I have something new for you and I'll post it soon."

I realize it has been a month since my last Ruling of the Week. I am reasonably certain I will come up for air soon and post some new material. In the meantime, if you are in NYC for the CITBA CLE and Annual Meeting on Thursday , I hope to see you there.

It is apparent that I did not succeed in my goal of getting 52 Rulings of the Week into the Blog. Despite, that, I think this has been a pretty productive blog year. This will be my 71st post of the year, with one to follow. That will probably cap 2015. Next year, I hope to pick up the pace somewhat. I'll continue trying to post the Ruling of the Week and court cases. I'll also make an effort at other administrative news. You know what I miss? Posts about animal smuggling . Keep an eye on my Twitter feed for news, mostly in the form or retweets from other bloggers. For now, consider the chutney problem. Headquarters Ruling H259324 (Sep. 3, 2015) involved the tariff classification and NAFTA status of green olive tapenade from Canada. This ruling is from a protest with an application for further review. That means that Customs and Border Protection denied the NAFTA claim made on this merchandise and the importer protested. In what appears to have been an effort to make the...

Since the earliest days of this blog, I have used Sitemeter to count the number of visits. The count is currently 233,472. Sitemeter has gone haywire and I rarely delve deeply into my visitor data anyway. So, I am pulling the link from the bottom of the page. If anyone has a suggestion for a good and free way to get analytics, let me know.

The ABA publishes an annual list of its top 100 legal blogs (or "blawgs"). If you read this blog and find it useful, please let the ABA know via their nomination form. Thank you. That ends our commercial message.

Argh. I am a week and a half behind on my commitment to provide a post on a ruling each week. Sorry, that is the beauty and curse of litigation. Back soon and will catch up. The good news is that there have been no new CIT and CAFC customs-related cases to report.

In case I have not already said it, Happy New Year. April of this year will mark the 10th year that I have written every word that appears on this blog. I am glad to have done it and hope it continues to be of value to all of you. At this point, I see no reason to stop or slow down and only good reasons to continue the effort. In fact, I would love some ideas from readers on what might make the blog more useful and more valuable, while keeping in mind that this is a side project and not an actual job. What I would really like is to see the blog readership numbers increase and much more interaction in the comments. I am certain not everyone agrees with what I say, what CBP does, or what the courts do. Let me know and we can have some discussion about it. I'd also like to see the blog make it into the "Niche" category of the ABA Journal's Blawg 100 . I should get there just for longevity if not for my scintillating content. In the meantime, let's learn a less...