This week the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released a second list of items that will be excluded from the 25% tariff otherwise imposed under Section 301 for imports into the U.S. of certain categories of Chinese-made goods. The new list relates to List 1 items, adding over thirty new items exempted from the tariff. USTR released an earlier list of about thirty commodities exempted from the List 1 tariff in December 2018. Items that USTR is excluding from the tariff will be eligible for entry into the U.S. without payment of the 25% tariff, and importers may obtain refunds for entries made from July 2018 of the listed commodities. However, the exclusions from the tariff will expire one year from the publication by USTR of the exclusions.
Importers who did not file exclusion requests with USTR, or whose exclusion requests were denied, should still review the listed exclusions since the exclusions will apply to any imports by any person of the listed commodities.
At this time, USTR has not granted any of the exclusions requested from List 2 of the Section 301 tariff. Nor has USTR formally indicated whether exclusion requests will be permitted for List 3 of the tariff.
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