[Cindy’s Version] The Tortured Trade Department: Tariffs, AI & The New Enforcement Reality (Podcast)

Cindy Allen – Trade Force Mult (00:01.944)
Hi, today is Friday, August 7th, 2026. I’m Cindy Allen, CEO of Trade Force Multiplier, a Global Trade Consultancy Service. We handle everything from those pesky customs questions, 28s, 29s, all the way to global trade strategy for corporate activities. Welcome to Simply Trade Cindy’s version, where I base an international trade update on a Taylor Swift song. This is brought to you in association with the Global Training Center.

Today’s song is the Tortured Poets Department, or as I like to say, the Tortured Trade Department, because we definitely are being a little tortured this week. So what happened in trade this week? Well, it’s been kind of a busy week for us. we did see that after the announcement of the 232 on the pharmaceuticals for the name brands.

The government did come back and revise and say that the UK actually will be exempt from those. There will be lesser duties on those. So if you’re subject to that importing from the UK, need to look up the details on that. Starting December 4th, CBP will impose Section 232 tariffs on solar grade polysilicon and its derivatives. If they don’t meet a minimum price, they have to provide documentation of the

First arm’s length sale in the US. So no more for sale for these to meet that price guideline. You may be able to use that for the evaluation, but your first arms length transaction is going to be the one to determine whether you pay tariffs or not. They will assess a 10% on the UK, 15% less MFN for six countries, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the EU, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein.

and 15% for all others. This is based on national security concerns and loss of market share in the United States, which is a little bit shaky ground for 232. It sets out a price per kilogram for the polysilicon ingots and some of the derivatives, or the price of wattage for solar cells and solar modules. They also will be providing exemptions that.

Cindy Allen – Trade Force Mult (02:21.42)
Governed by the Department of Commerce for companies that are producing these in the United States to incentivize investment. So not only do you have to know whether your article, because it’s derivatives, article contains polysilicon or these solar cells or solar modules, you have to know what the first sale, arm’s length sale price is for that component level. And you have to know what country it’s from, and also.

the company that is importing it, because if they have an exemption, you may be able to be exempt from the duty. We don’t know if that’s going to be retroactive, like the automotive offsets, or whether that’s going to be just no assessment on the entry. So again, like the pharmaceuticals, you have to know the company, the product, the country of origin, of course, which we all know, but also whether they have an exemption or not. So it’s getting a lot more complicated out there. We don’t

Just need to know the product that’s coming in, the country of origin, and maybe the bill of materials for that article. You need to go much deeper in the supply chain. Commerce has also proposed adding 14 additional products to the existing Section 232 terrace for copper, steel, and aluminum. These include propane and oxygen gas tanks. It includes some lifting equipment, it includes aluminum powder.

And also some brass wind instruments. So for those kids going back to school, you know, I’m I’m really disappointed, might want to go out and get those instruments right now and and not wait on that because it appears that the price to import is going to go up. in some other related news, 25 states have filed a legal challenge now for the forced labor of Section 301. If you recall, some of the states have challenged other tariff regimes.

in other assessments, they have not been successful to date. the court has generally thrown these out for a lack of jurisdiction over the importation. So we’ll see where these go and what legal basis they are actually proposing in the lawsuits. OFO, the Office of Field Operations at CBP, has released a new roadmap for its plans to safeguard travel trade and agriculture through 2030.

Cindy Allen – Trade Force Mult (04:46.168)
this is a planning activity that the offices do undergo on a regular basis. However, I encourage everyone to go out there and look at it because it does outline AI and analytical tools are all over the document. They’re mentioned throughout, as well as references to a complete interoperability tool for both the government, non-government agencies, and the other enforcement agencies. So they’re looking really

To supplement what they have today, which is ACE, and underneath that the targeting tool by making sure that all that information is there. If you recall, I’ve talked about before how there’s two different sets of targeting systems, one for the Office of Trade that looks at commercial data, and then one for the security concerns in the Office of Field Operations, and that really has its origins back to the

ISF data saying or I ISF program saying that that information must be kept separately. The information collected and used for security can’t be used for commercial concerns. So that’s created this bifurcated environment at CBP. And I think that we’ve overcome those concerns by importers and I am in support of changing those laws to ensure that all of that information comes together.

We as importers have to look at that anyway, overall, together. And it doesn’t really make sense for the US government to have to split that data out now that we have these very, very advanced analytical tools. and speaking of enforcement and forced labor, over 40 companies have been added to the UFLPA list from China.

China has actually countered with adding six US companies to its countermeasures list, which limits how those companies can operate in China and the companies that use them within China. And it’s tightened some exports, including those of drones. Their reasoning is that the companies listed have assisted the US in identification of forced labor, which is against the Chinese policies. They don’t

Cindy Allen – Trade Force Mult (07:04.918)
recognize that forced labor is actually happening for the most part. So this is going to create some complications for companies who are using the services of those six individual companies that are listed. If you are doing business in China, you may want to take a look at that Countermeasures Act in China. Just this week there have been several IORs that have been hit with duty evasion.

So we’re seeing an increase in enforcement. We’re also seeing an increase in enforcement findings. So that tells me that CBP is using those analytical tools and they are much more effective in doing so because they are finding things that have been a result of duty evasion, whether fraud or unintentional.

One company has agreed to pay $5.5 million in duty. Another was assessed over $600,000 in duty, and that’s just the duty amounts. That doesn’t include any penalties or liquidated damages that might be included in that duty evasion process. So we’re looking at a very heightened enforcement opportunity for CBP based on those, based on that analytical tools that they have used. In Cape News.

Almost a hundred and thirty billion dollars in refunds is either in process or has been issued for the IEPA duties that the Supreme Court found were actually unlawful. There have been 25.1 million entries that have passed the validations are in are in some process of being refunded, either fully refunded or in the process. Five million of those entries have

failed to pass the validation. So if you’re in that bucket, you’ll want to work with your customs broker to determine what the cause of that is. Now, yes, there have been a few cases where CVP, their programming hasn’t been accurate and they are rejecting some of these for not passing validations. And upon further review, they’ve had to make some programming changes on the back end. But the vast majority of these have to do with how the tariffs were stacked

Cindy Allen – Trade Force Mult (09:16.78)
where the actual duty was paid on what line in that tariff stacking, because as I have mentioned before, when those first came out, guidance was not issued in enough detail. And customs brokers and software providers provided their best guess and how to do that. And some of them were later clarified not to be accurate. So you may be in a situation where your broker has to file a post summary correction to correct the actual

way that the duty was actually filed on the entry and then go back and file a CAPE declaration because it will be able to bounce off of that tariff number accuracy and be able to process that refund. Those are not you know in the majority of obviously of those filed. so

In all that, I recommend that you start looking at AI tools. If you have not, or if you’ve been one of those companies that have been determining, this is gonna it’s gonna blow over, this is not the you know, w once this administration passes or once Congress flips, you know, if it does, we aren’t gonna see this level of enforcement activity. And I’m going to try to disabuse you of that notion because

I believe that enforcement is here to stay. Regardless of an administration, regardless of changes at CBP, at leadership levels, the individuals who are dedicated to enforcement have better tools at their disposal. They have more information and they have better findings. So we’re not seeing witch hunts go out, you know, lots of fishing expeditions. Usually, if you’re getting a question from CBP, it’s because they found something, not necessarily in your transactions, but perhaps.

in one of the transactions for your second, third, fourth, fifth tier supplier. And they’ve been able to trace articles and concerns back to that supplier. And then they look at their map and say, who else does business with this company? You may not even know that there is a concern there because it’s buried in your supply chain and you have no visibility to that right now. Those are the types of activities that CBP has spent billions of dollars to

Cindy Allen – Trade Force Mult (11:35.875)
Develop analytical tools to identify. So, my recommendation to the trading public is that you actually spend some time looking at what your company imports at every different level back to those raw materials because you may be subject to enforcement activity and you don’t even understand why, and you need to have visibility into that information to do an accurate risk determination. And secondly,

There are more and more and more Section 232 cases that are based on derivative products. You have to know if your company is going to be exposed to a 232 investigation or a derivative product. Maybe you aren’t aware of that because you’re importing finished goods. But if the derivative product becomes subject to that, you need to know and be aware of what level of tariffs you may be subject to and what risk you play. And

Alternatively, if there is an exemption for some of those derivative products, you may not know that because you’re an importer, but your derivative company product producers may be subject to an exemption. So my recommendation is to start looking hard at some of those AI tools. so why did I choose the Tortured Poets Department? Well, I call it the Tortured Trade Department because

The more complex these duty schemes get, the section 232s and 338s and 122, the more complicated our jobs get. The more we need that type of analytical tools, but we also need that expertise to be able to determine what is my risk here. You know, just like any other AI tool that you may use in the business environment, Chat GPT, Claude, any of those, it’ll spit out information, but it’s really up.

To the trade professionals to make a determination if that’s accurate or not. So our profession has been in great demand. But the torture posts department, I think one of the lines that stands out in the song to me is who’s gonna decode you like me? Nobody, because we are the trade professionals. And my other favorite reference to this song is Who Uses Typewriters Anyway?

Cindy Allen – Trade Force Mult (13:50.0)
talking about, you know, how how a songwriter uses a typewriter. Well, I I’ve been in this industry for almost 40 years, and I remember when we actually used to type out entries. technology has come a long way. I’m a big supporter. I I don’t use a typewriter anyway anymore. and neither should you. But you should also look at those interim technology tools that you have and ask yourself, does this meet what I need today? And if not, do an assessment.

Reach out to your trade professionals, reach out to those tech companies, reach out to consultants like us here at Trade Force Multiplier. We can help. Hopefully that helps you. We’ll talk to you next week.