GHY Tradelines

(Truck News)

But DRIC is ‘in no way’ dead says OTA president

The Michigan Senate has rejected a last-minute attempt to secure passage of the legislation which would have enabled the construction of a new bridge between Windsor and Detroit as proposed by the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) process.

Ontario Trucking Association president David Bradley called the Senate’s action on Thursday “unfortunate”, saying, “It’s extremely disappointing that the Michigan Senate has chosen to stall progress on this important project, costing Michigan and Ontario tens of thousands of construction jobs next year, but even more seriously, damaging the economic recovery of the region by signalling to potential investors that the all important trade link between Ontario and Michigan will continue to be tenuous. The impact on investment decisions and on manufacturing jobs is the real story of the Senate’s decision.” Read more here.

(Transport Topics)

FedEx Corp. said Friday it would raise shipping rates for its Ground and Home Delivery units by a net average of 4.9%, effective Jan. 3.

Rates will actually increase an average of 5.9%, but FedEx will also adjust the threshold at which the fuel surcharge begins, reducing it by one percentage point, the carrier said in a statement. Read more here.

Rate change information is available from the carrier at here.

(GrainNews)

More questions are still to come from the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement panel as its final face-to-face hearings conclude on Canada’s challenge of U.S. mandatory country-of-origin labelling (COOL).

The hearings ended Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland, with a month to come devoted to responding to written questions from the WTO panel, the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association said in a release Friday.

The panel’s decision is expected to be published in late July, the CCA said, noting the panel “is certainly not showing its hand” regarding the outcome. Read more here.

(World Trade Interactive)

The International Trade Commission will make additional recommendations on the addition of new subheadings in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the U.S. for certain footwear.

On Aug. 9, the ITC submitted to the president a report with its recommendations on the addition of an Additional U.S. Note and the amendment of certain classification provisions in HTSUS Chapter 64 relating to certain footwear featuring outer soles of rubber or plastic to which a layer of textile material has been added. These changes would reflect decisions of the World Customs Organization’s Harmonized System Committee on the classification of particular footwear. The president subsequently submitted a report containing the ITC’s recommendations to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees for their review.

On Nov. 8, however, the ITC received a letter from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative requesting that it make further recommendations, based on new submissions to be filed by interested parties relating to entries liquidated prior to the ITC initiation of this investigation on April 13, on the appropriateness of inserting new tariff lines under HTSUS 6404.11 and 6404.19 in addition to those already recommended. USTR noted that while the ITC’s August report correctly included descriptions specifying that footwear falling under certain new tariff lines under current HTSUS 6404.11 and 6404.19 feature uppers of textile material other than vegetable fibers, because these descriptions appeared for the first time in the final report interested parties may not have recognized the need to submit information on the tariff classification and rate of duty applied to imports in liquidated and undisputed entries of other footwear (e.g., having uppers of manmade fibers) falling into these new subheadings so that the ITC could maintain tariff rate neutrality in making its recommendation. Read more here.