New Round of Tariff Exclusions on Chinese Goods

Posted September 24, 2019

In China, customs, customs clearance, Donald Trump, Global Business, import, importer, importers, importing, Imports, International Shipping, shippers, shipping, Trump

President-elect Trump w/ US & Chinese flags

Picture of Donald Trump by Michael Vadon. U.S. & Chinese flags added.

Last week, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issued more tariff exclusions on Chinese goods.

Section 301 tariffs have obviously had a big impact on U.S. shippers who import from China. And these tariff hikes just seem to keep coming, with Trump announcing late last month another 5% increase on $550 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Of course, companies have been taking advantage of the process put in place to file for exemptions to these tariffs. Jen Ackerman even reported in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that one company has applied for over 10,000 exemptions.

Obviously, not all exemption applications have been accepted; however, there are hundreds of exemptions the USTR has granted over three tranches.

When exemptions are granted, they can be taken advantage of by all U.S. shippers who import those goods. However, it is important to note that exemptions are not granted to every product classified by the HTS number a good is listed under on the lists. Therefore, shippers must carefully read the product descriptions also included in USTR exclusion lists to make sure the products they import qualify for exemption.

These exemptions are also retroactive, so shippers can recover money spent in duties on goods they’ve already imported during these Section 301 tariff hikes.

Below, we’ll give links to the lists of all three tranches of Section 301 tariff exemptions plus quick overviews of the lists, including the amount of items in the lists and how long the exclusions last (from data provided by Chris Reynolds of INLT, Universal Cargo’s house customs broker):

List 1 — Section 301 Tariff Exemptions in 1st Tranche

The first tranche of exemptions includes 310 specially prepared product descriptions and covers 724 separate requests. These exemptions will be in effect for one year following publication in the Federal Register.

For the retroactive timeline, List 1 tariffs went into effect July 6, 2018.

Click here to see the first tranche.

List 2 — Section 301 Tariff Exemptions in 2nd Tranche

The second tranche of exemptions includes 89 product descriptions and covers 400 requests. These exemptions will be in effect for one year following publication in the Federal Register.

For the retroactive timeline, List 2 tariffs went into effect August 23, 2018.

Click here to see the second tranche.

List 3 — Section 301 Tariff Exemptions in 3rd Tranche

The third tranche of exemptions includes 38 product descriptions that cover 46 exemption requests. These exemptions will remain in effect until August 7, 2020, slightly less than the full year granted to the first two exemptions. The reason, according to the USTR, is a full year would result in disparities in the effective periods between exemptions granted early in the exemption process and those granted later.

For the retroactive timeline, List 3 tariffs went into effect September 24, 2018.

Click here to see the third tranche.

section 301 tariffs, tariff exclusions, tariff exemptions, tariffs on Chinese goods

Jared Vineyard

For more than ten years, Jared has researched and written about the international shipping industry for the freight forwarder Universal Cargo. His work has been republished on the web and in print, including the maritime news magazine Inside Marine. When first joining Universal Cargo, Jared trained in the freight forwarding process and helped customers with their imports and exports, giving him his initial international shipping sea legs.