Section 301 Investigations 2026: The Two Probes, What the Forced-Labour One Concluded, and What Overcapacity Still Threatens
On March 11 and March 12, 2026, the Office of the United States Trade Representative launched two of the most consequential sets of trade investigations in a generation. The first of the Section 301 investigations 2026 targets 16 major economies for structural manufacturing overcapacity. The second of the Section 301 investigations 2026 targets 60 economies […]
Multi-Cloud AI Infrastructure Import Compliance: The Complete Guide for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Deployments
On March 16, 2026, AWS announced at NVIDIA GTC that starting in 2026 it will deploy more than one million NVIDIA GPUs, including Blackwell and Rubin architectures, across its global cloud regions. Reuters confirmed on March 19, 2026, that NVIDIA plans to deliver this quantity to Amazon’s cloud division by end of 2027. Those one […]
Supply Chain Diversification Away From China 2026: Vietnam, India, Mexico and the IOR Requirements Every Importer Needs
US goods imports from China totalled USD 308.4 billion in 2025, down 29.7% from 2024, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. This represents the lowest level since 2009 and reflects the structural shift underway in global sourcing. For North American buyers, the combined share of their top three supplier countries fell […]
HS 2028 Explained: What Changes and Why Most IT Codes Do Not
The World Customs Organization has formally adopted the next edition of the Harmonized System. HS 2028 enters into force on January 1, 2028, bringing 299 sets of changes to the classification framework that underpins every customs declaration, duty calculation, and free trade agreement eligibility determination made by over 200 economies worldwide. For HS 2028 importers, […]
Importer of Record vs Customs Broker: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters
When it comes to importer of record vs customs broker, one costly mistake is assuming the two roles are interchangeable. They are not, and the difference can carry legal and financial consequences that many businesses only discover after a shipment is held, a penalty is issued, or the intended importer turns out not to be […]
How to Ship IT Hardware into Brazil Without a Local Legal Entity
Brazil is the largest IT hardware market in Latin America and one of the most structurally complex customs environments in the world for foreign companies. The core problem is this: a foreign company without a Brazilian-registered entity and a CNPJ tax registration number cannot obtain a RADAR licence from the Receita Federal, and without RADAR […]
EU CBAM 2026: What Exporters’ EU Buyers Will Pay and When
The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its definitive phase on January 1, 2026. After a three-year transitional period of reporting-only obligations, EU CBAM 2026 now carries real financial consequences for every business exporting steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, electricity, or hydrogen into the European Union. The European Commission published the first quarterly CBAM certificate price […]
Importing NVIDIA H200 Servers: Export Licence, Duty and IOR by Market
Importing NVIDIA H200 servers outside the US involves three separate compliance layers that most procurement teams manage sequentially when they should be managing simultaneously. The first is US export controls under the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which determine whether the H200 can leave the United States for your destination country and under what […]
Chip Security Act 2026: AI Hardware Importers and Data Centre Operators
Chip Security Act 2026 passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a unanimous 42-0 vote on March 26, 2026. It now heads to the full House for consideration. It has not been enacted yet. But for AI hardware importers, data centre operators, and cloud service providers that hold export-controlled GPU infrastructure outside the United States, […]
Reduce Import Duty Australia 2026: FTA Network, Tariff Concession Orders and the Deferred GST Scheme
Australia charges 0% or 5% customs duty on most goods, making it one of the lowest headline tariff markets in the Asia Pacific region. Yet a significant proportion of importers into Australia pay more than they should, either because they miss the applicable Free Trade Agreement preferential rate on goods from an FTA partner country, […]