On June 20, 2018, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced in the Federal Register that, beginning on July 6, 2018, an additional 25% duty will be imposed on products from China set out in Annex A of the notice. The USTR also released details on the public hearing and comments schedule regarding additional proposed tariffs on the list of products set out in Annex C of the notice.
Yesterday’s notice confirmed the USTR’s proposed Section 301 actions on two lists of tariff lines released through a press conference on June 15. The first list included 818 tariff lines valued at $34 billion worth of imports from China. The second list includes 284 tariff lines and is valued at $16 billion worth of imports from China. For details, please click here.
The USTR will convene a public hearing regarding the second list of tariff lines on July 24, 2018. Interested parties are required to file a request to appear at the hearing and a summary of expected testimony by June 28, 2018.
Written comments pertinent to the second list of tariff lines are due by July 23, 2018. Rebuttals to those comments are due by July 31, 2018.
The USTR determined it would establish a process by which U.S. stakeholders could request that particular products classified within a covered tariff subheading in Annex A be excluded from these additional duties. However, details on the exclusion process have not yet been released. The notice indicates that USTR will publish a separate notice describing the product exclusion process, including the procedures for submitting exclusion requests, and an opportunity for interested persons to submit oppositions to a request.