The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) will soon publish a federal register notice outlining the process for submitting Section 301 exclusion requests for List 4. The USTR noted that if an exclusion is granted, it will effective from the day the first tranche of List 4 tariffs (i.e. “Annex A”) came to effect (i.e. from September 1, 2019). Instead of being effective for one year after after exclusions are granted, as was the case for Lists 1-2, any exclusion will be effective for one year, starting from the September 1, 2019 effective date for Annex A of the August 20, 2019 notice.
The key dates moving forward are:
- October 31, 2019 at noon EDT: The web portal for submitting exclusion requests – https://exclusions.USTR.gov – will open.
- January 31, 2020 at 11:59 PM EDT: Last day for submitting exclusion requests.
The federal register notice introduced new questions and data points that were not included in the exclusion request forms for list 3 and concern:
- The requestor’s import and revenue data for first half of 2019 instead of the first quarter of 2019.
- Whether the product is subject to an antidumping or countervailing duty order issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce.