The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has announced that it will consider extending exclusions from Section 301 tariffs on certain products. This announcement merely covers products granted an exclusion in April and May of 2020.
Product exclusions eligible for extension during the new comment period include 332 individual exclusions contained in three separate exclusion announcements published on April 24, 2020, May 8, 2020, and May 21, 2020. Products receiving extensions would remain excluded from the 25 percent Section 301 duties on List 3 for up to an additional 12 months. Recently, however, USTR has been granting exclusions for less than 12 months. Comments will open on Monday, June 8, on USTR’s online portal and the comment deadline is Tuesday, July 7.
USTR is currently considering extensions for 11 different rounds of expiring List 3 exclusions granted between August 2019 and March 2020. The deadline for comment on the extension of these List 3 exclusions is June 8.
All List 3 exclusions are set to expire on Aug. 7, 2020. Therefore, this is the only opportunity to comment on the extension of this set of List 3 product exclusions. No exclusions have been extended by USTR in the absence of comments in support of extension. Therefore, as always, we strongly recommend that you consider submitting comments in support of the extension of any product exclusions benefiting you or your suppliers.
For more information, contact Samantha Rocci at srocci@rvia.org.