Tariff news, customs regulations, import-export rules, and trade policy affecting commerce.
A three-month grace period on CBP’s rewritten mail rules ends on October 22, forcing parcels with partner agency requirements or Chapter 98 and Chapter 99 duties out of the postal informal entry process. A proposed rule published October 8 would make the architecture permanent at a cost CBP puts at $9.3bn.
A US trade court certified a class of importers on October 8, opening a route to roughly $11bn of IEEPA tariff refunds for companies that never filed suit. The order does not pay anyone yet, and a government appeal is still live at the Federal Circuit.
USTR confirmed on October 7 that the 2018 Section 301 actions against China did not terminate on their four-year anniversaries and will remain in force. The decision lands 33 days before 178 product exclusions are scheduled to expire at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on November 9, 2026.
Levi Strauss recorded about $80 million of IEEPA tariff refunds in its third quarter of fiscal 2026, lifting gross margin to 66.2% and full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $1.54 to $1.56 per share. Revenue missed and direct-to-consumer comparable sales were flat, and the stock fell almost 5%.
India’s 150 percent wine import tariff starts falling on October 20, 2026, when the New Zealand-India trade agreement enters into force, but only above a US$5 per bottle threshold. Three months of flat Scotch prices since the UK deal show state excise, not customs duty, decides what Indian shoppers pay.
Temu’s UK operating company reported revenue of about USD 171m for 2025, up roughly 171% on the year, in accounts filed at Companies House on 30 September 2026. The filing lands as Britain prepares to scrap the GBP 135 low value import duty relief by October 2028.
Britain is drawing up its first tariff on Chinese electric cars, with ministers reported willing to match the EU effective ceiling of about 45 percent. The pressure comes from Brussels and its Made in EU content rules, not from British carmakers.
CBP deploys CAPE Phase 3 on October 6, 2026, opening its refund system to finally liquidated entries holding roughly $11.4 billion in IEEPA duties. Only Court of International Trade plaintiffs with reliquidation orders and an importer of record number filed by July 30 can use it.
G20 trade ministers ended two days of talks in Milwaukee without consensus on industrial excess capacity or forced labor, with USTR saying a handful of members firmly rejected the draft text. That leaves a live Section 301 investigation into 16 economies as the operative route for the US agenda.
A US import ban on most Canadian packaged alcohol, several dairy inputs and motorcycles above 800 cc took effect on September 29, 2026 under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. CBP is now rejecting entries on the covered tariff lines outright, leaving retailers and direct-to-consumer sellers with a sourcing problem rather than a duty bill.