The US Trade Representative has issued the eighth set of exclusions to List 3 for the Chinese 301 tariffs. There are 2 exclusions at the HTS level for winches and parts of clutches, plus 117 other exclusions at the product level. This set of exclusions will be declared using HTS 9903.88.38. We can expect more exclusions in the future as the USTR received over 30,000 exclusion requests for List 3 with a backlog of over 17,000 applications still in the review process. Over 12,000 requests have been denied thus far.
The period in which to request exclusions for List 4A closed on January 31st with over 2800 requests filed. As a reminder, the duty rate for List 4A will decrease from 15% to 7.5% effective February 14th.
The USTR is seeking comments on whether to extend the third set of exclusions to List 1. This set was issued in April 2019 and will expire April 18, 2020. The comment period will open February 16th until March 16th. The format for which to submit comments may be found in today’s Federal Register notice.