Mark September 18 on your calendar. Starting that day, CBP will begin immediately voiding the importer number of any company whose CBP Form 5106 information is inaccurate or incomplete. This is not a routine reminder and follows Executive Order 14411, signed in June, which directed a full review of active Importer of Record data, and…
Maximum vessel draft at the Panama Canal drops to 48.0 feet on August 26 and 47.5 feet by September 3, as Gatun Lake water levels keep falling under a strengthening El Nino. NOAA currently puts the odds at 81% that this becomes one of the strongest El Nino events on record, pointing toward below normal…
The escalation has arrived. At 12:01 a.m. ET on August 22, the United States imposed an additional 50% tariff on a broad range of Canadian goods under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a provision Washington had barely used in decades before this year. Even the date carries a story. The tariffs were…
In July, the Trump Administration chose to let the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement lapse, leaving companies in flux. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, choosing not to renew this agreement for 16 years will instead trigger an annual review process that will run until 2036. In a recent interview about the deal President…
Hormuz traffic is back at crisis lows, the Houthis have opened a second front against Saudi shipping, and new US duties landed the same week. Yet spot rates just fell. Here is why, and what it means for your cost base. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively contested since February 28, when Iran began…
A single clause buried in a 1974 trade law let the administration put duties on 99.4% of American imports, four months after the Supreme Court struck down its last attempt. Here’s what happened, step by step. At 12:01 a.m. Eastern on Friday, July 24, a 10% tariff on nearly everything the United States imports quietly…
There is a version of this story where the headline writes itself: CPSC requires electronic filing of product certificates starting July 8, 2026. That is accurate, and for some importers it is all they need to know to start making calls. But the rule has enough moving parts: two certificate types, two filing methods, seven…
The tariffs came fast, the court orders came faster, and now the question for most importers who paid IEEPA duties is not whether they are entitled to a refund for a large number of entries, the legal question has been resolved, but whether they have done what is required to actually collect one. That is…
Weeks after the U.S. and Iran signed a fragile Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for shipping, remains in flux. Bloomberg reported Saturday that some attempting to leave the Persian Gulf along the Omani coast turned back between Friday and Saturday. But then, on Sunday, some ships were able make…
Right now, a proposed peace deal between the U.S. and Iran remains in flux, as key issues, like the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program, remain sticking points. The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the region’s most vital chokepoints, with about 20% of the world’s petroleum and liquified natural gas passing through. These…