Spending Bill Would Require Exclusion Process For All Section 301 Tariffs On China
Last week, the U.S. House and Senate passed, and President Donald Trump signed, a full fiscal year spending bill that allows all federal agencies to stay open through Sept. 30, 2019.
The legislation also included a provision that requires the U.S. Trade Representative to create an exclusion process for the third round of Section 301 tariffs, which imposed a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of imports from China.
Currently exclusions can only be granted for first two rounds of tariffs on $50 billion in imports, and, additionally, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a November 2018 letter sent to members of Congress that the Trump administration did not plan to create any exclusion process for List 3.
The legislation stated, “This process should be initiated no later than 30 days after the enactment of this Act, following the same procedures as those in rounds 1 and 2, allowing stakeholders to request that particular products classified within a tariff subheading subject to new round 3 tariffs be excluded from the Section 301 tariffs.”