2012 TPL & Sublimits for DR-CAFTA Apparel w/ Inputs from Mexico Announced
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a memorandum announcing the 2012 tariff preference level (TPL) limit and sublimits for certain U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) apparel goods that can benefit from cumulation1 using Mexican inputs, as provided for in HTS Chapter 98, Subchapter XXII, U.S. Note 21.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
This TPL opened on January 3, 2012 and is for the January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2012 period.
Cumulation TPL & Sublimits
According to CBP, the 2012 overall TPL for subject apparel goods is 100,000,000 square meter equivalents (SME). There are also three sublimits to this TPL:
| 1) Certain trousers, skirts, and parts thereof, of cotton or man-made fibers, or subject to cotton or man-made fiber restraints | 45,000,000 SME |
| 2) Certain cotton blue denim trousers and skirts | 20,000,000 SME |
| 3) Certain apparel goods, not knitted or crocheted, containing 36% or more by weight of wool or subject to wool restraints | 1,000,000 SME |
CBP states that this apparel is to be entered under HTS 9822.05.11, pursuant to HTS Chapter 98, Subchapter XXII, U.S. Note 21(b). In addition, the filer must use entry type code 02, 06, 07, 12, 23, 32, 38, or 52.
Note that in a previous memo, CBP stated that certain woven wool suits, trousers, suit-type jackets, blazers, vests, and skirts are not subject to the quantitative limit, provided that they are not made from carded wool fabric or made from wool yarn having an average fiber diameter of 18.5 microns or less. Any of the specified apparel not made from such fabric or yarns are to be entered under HTS subheading 9822.05.13.
(As of December 27, 2011, the 2011 Cumulation TPL was 21.16% filled. The TPL sublimits had the following fill rates: (1) trousers and skirts were 6.23% filled; (2) denim was 79.77% filled; and (3) wool was 34.09% filled.)
1Cumulation allows certain woven apparel items of HTS Chapter 62 produced with Mexican materials to claim preferential treatment as though they originated in a DR-CAFTA country, pursuant to HTS General Note 29 (d)(vii).
(QBT-11-580, dated 12/22/11)