The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting supply chains worldwide and causing economic and financial hardship on countries and companies alike. However, there are actions businesses involved in global trade can take to respond to this unprecedented situation, including the following.
90-Day Duty Deferral
U.S. Customs and Border Protection briefly accepted individual requests to delay import duty payments but then stopped. Affected companies are now pushing for legislation that would require CBP to susp all import tariffs for 90 days. A dozen senators supported this idea in a March 25 letter to President Trump, saying that a duty deferral ˇ°similar to the IRS providing Americans an additional 90 days to make tax payments without incurring interest of penaltiesˇ± is a ˇ°commonsenseˇ± idea. Nevertheless, more efforts will be needed to push this measure forward against what has thus far been resistance from the Trump administratio
