John B. Brew

As the former chair of Crowell & Moring’s International Trade Group and a partner in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office, John has extensive experience in import and export trade regulation, collaborating with corporations, trade associations, foreign governments, and nongovernmental organizations on customs administration, enforcement, compliance litigation, legislation, and policy matters. He represents clients in proceedings at the administrative and judicial levels as well as before Congress and the international bureaucracies that handle customs and trade matters. John advises clients on all substantive import regulatory issues handled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, such as classification, valuation, origin, marking, tariff preference programs, other agency regulations, admissibility, customs brokerage, Section 321, drawback, foreign trade zones, duty recovery programs, import restrictions, quotas, audits, prior disclosures, penalties, investigations, Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism and trade compliance programs, importations under bond, the Jones Act, and vessel repairs.

John has been at the forefront in assisting clients challenge the onslaught of additional tariffs (e.g., IEEPA) and recovering tariffs paid through successful litigation. He has assisted clients in a broad array of industries (automotive, aerospace, chemical, e-commerce, energy, pharmaceutical, petroleum, textile, apparel and footwear, food and beverage, agricultural, machinery, equipment, electronics, and household goods), providing creative solutions that enable clients to obtain significant duty savings and mitigate draconian customs penalties.

John’s practice also includes representation of clients in other international trade areas, such as human rights (forced labor, withhold release orders, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, modern slavery, and supply chain due diligence); export controls; sanctions; market access; World Trade Organization–related matters; bilateral, multilateral, and regional trade agreements; the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; anti-boycott, anti-dumping, and countervailing duty actions; short supply proceedings; Sections 122, 201, 232, 301, and 337; and other import relief actions.

John has been recognized by Chambers USA in the area of International Trade: Customs; Chambers Global in the area of International Trade, U.S.; The Best Lawyers in America in the area of International Trade and Finance Law; Lexology Index in the area of Trade & Customs; and Super Lawyers in the area of International, and he won the 2020 Client Choice Award for International Trade in the United States.