In June 2018, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced additional tariffs on products imported from China. The additional tariffs are part of the U.S.’ response to China’s unfair trade practices related to “the forced transfer of American technology and intellectual property” pursuant to Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. To date, three lists of tariffs against China have been posted.
Today, August 13, 2019, the USTR released two additional lists (List 4A and List 4B) of products that will be subject to a 10% tariff that will directly affect the Fashion Industry, particularly apparel and clothing accessories, footwear, and hats.
This list will go into effect September 1, 2019. The ad valorem tariff could potentially impact approximately $42 billion worth of imported apparel.
List 4A covers the following:
Footwear articles (91 tariff lines);
Apparel and clothing accessories (e.g., scarves, gloves, trousers, suits, blouses, shirts, skirts)(356 tariff lines); and
Headwear products (hair-nets, safety headgear of reinforced or laminated plastics, and safety headwear) (3 tariff lines).
List 4B (the second list of products subject to the tariffs) will not go into effect until December 15, 2019. It will include an additional 56 lines of footwear articles; and 35 lines of apparel and clothing accessories.
List 4A: Effective as of September 1, 2019
List 4B: Effective as of December 15, 2019
USTR also indicated that it will launch an exclusion request process for products subject to the additional 10 percent ad valorem tariff.
The complete list of Chinese Tariffs, Trade Actions, and Retaliatory Measures is available here.