The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking Office of Management and Budget approval to renew its exclusion request form for Section 301 tariffs, USTR said in a notice. The form was previously approved by OMB under an "emergency" review (see 1906170025) and is set to expire at the end of the year, USTR said. The burden estimate for the form was also revised, based on comments received in response to the emergency processing notice, the agency said.
Section 301 (too broad)
CBP should be ready for when the next round of Section 301 tariffs take effect on Sept. 1, and multiple preparations are ongoing, CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said during the Aug. 21 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting in Buffalo, New York. While some products won't be tariffed until December (see 1908130018), "duties on a significant number of fourth tranche goods are still anticipated to go into effect Sept. 1, which is just a little over a week from now," he said. "CBP is prepared to implement this latest round of duties as it has been with all the other rounds." The agency has been working with "USTR to obtain a final list of the goods subject to tariffs, even though it started to change a little bit," will "make the necessary program changes to ACE" and "ensure trade stakeholders have all the information they need to file a proper entry."
TV imports to the U.S. turned sharply more China-centric in the weeks after the Trump administration announced its proposed List 4 Section 301 tariffs on finished sets from China among the roughly $300 billion worth of goods not previously dutied, an analysis of Census Bureau trade statistics found. Observers will debate whether importers’ rush to beat the threatened tariffs played a role in the steep influx of China-sourced TVs arriving in the U.S. during June.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Aug. 12-16 in case they were missed.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expects Canada's Parliament to continue progress on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in the fall following October elections, he said in recently posted written responses to House Ways and Means Committee members following a June 19 hearing (see 1906190062). "The Trudeau government has begun necessary steps to ratify the USMCA in its Parliament and has stated that it plans to move forward on implementation in tandem with the United States," he said. "The Canadian Parliament has adjourned for the summer and is not expected to return before federal elections are held on October 21, 2019. We anticipate that Canada will take up the legislation once a new government is seated later this fall, and we are confident that the Parliament will vote in favor of the Agreement."
France’s digital service tax (DST) is a radical departure from international norm, discriminates against U.S. companies and undermines efforts to reach global, multilateral consensus on the digital economy, tech companies and trade groups told U.S. officials on Aug. 19 (see 1908140023). Witnesses from Facebook, Google, Amazon, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and the Information Technology Industry Council testified before the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and officials from various federal agencies. Representatives from the departments of Commerce, State, Agriculture, Homeland Security and others questioned tech witnesses as part of the USTR’s Section 301 investigation of France’s DST (see 1907100076).
The Government Accountability Office found that e-cigarette devices brought in $71.5 million in tariff revenues from 2016 to 2018, while parts for the vaping industry were responsible for $41.6 million in tariffs. The liquid for e-cigarettes is imported at lower volumes, and accounted for $7.4 million in tariffs during the two-year period.
The American Apparel and Footwear Association complained about the tenor of news coverage about Section 301 tariff delays, noting that 77 percent of apparel and textiles will face an additional 10 percent tariff on Sept. 1, not the later December date.
Though Walmart expects to finish 2019 toward the “upper end” of its previous guidance of between 2.5 percent and 3 percent same-store sales growth, it’s slightly scaling back full-year expectations on consolidated net sales growth, it said in a fiscal Q2 report Aug. 15. It was the first bellwether of possible retail impact from the 10 percent List 4 Section 301 tariffs taking effect Sept. 1, and again Dec. 15, on Chinese goods.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative posted to its website Aug. 14 its upcoming notice in the Federal Register detailing new Section 301 tariffs on a fourth list of $300 billion in Chinese imports (see 1908130033). According to the notice, beginning on Sept. 1, goods included in the first group of the list must be filed under subheading 9903.88.15. Then, effective Dec. 15, tariffs take effect on a second list of goods under subheading 9903.88.16.