China’s Ministry of Finance just announced it would be increasing tariffs on roughly $60 billion worth of U.S. goods in response to President Trump’s decision to increase tariffs to 25% on various goods from China. China said it would by June 1, 2019, raise its tariffs to as high as 25% on U.S. products currently subject to 5% and 10% tariffs. The U.S. Department of Commerce tracks Information about China’s retaliations in response to the U.S. Section 301 tariffs and it is expected to include links to China’s official announcements. Our international trade lawyers are being told by Department of Commerce officials that it is in the process of updating its China retaliatory tariffs compilation table and that will eventually set out (in English) exactly what the tariff increases will be for the U.S. products.
In the meantime, China’s Ministry of Finance has posted its new tariff sheets on its website, but in Chinese only and though that is what we are using with our own clients, it would be too big a task for us to translate all 5,000+ products for this post. But if you can read Chinese, go here for the list of 2,493 products facing a 25 percent tariff, here for the list of 1,078 products facing a 20 percent tariff, here for the list of 974 products facing a 10 percent tariff, and here for the list of 595 products whose tariffs will remain at 5 percent. UPDATE: Quartz Magazine has published an English language list of the products subject to the 25% tariff here.
Chinese companies impacted by China’s Section 301 retaliatory tariffs can apply for exclusions of certain products through this process. It is reported that a key consideration for granting a product-specific exclusion is the lack of an adequate substitute for the U.S. product. Applicants for these exclusions are to submit their exclusion requests through the China Tariff Policy Research Center of the Ministry of Finance website. Exclusion requests for certain excluded products are to be submitted from June 3, 2019 to July 5, 2019 and exclusion requests for other of the products are to be submitted from September 2, 2019 to October 18, 2019.
If you are looking to have your product or products excluded by these increased China tariffs, you should work with your international trade lawyers and with your China importers and their international trade lawyers to get an exclusion request submitted. What percent of these exclusion requests will succeed? Who knows?