Our FOIA Request Turns Up No Records on Decision Sparing TVs From Tariffs, Says USTR

No records exist at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative explaining how and why the agency removed finished TVs from China from the first tranche of Trade Act Section 301 tariffs imposed July 6 (see 1806150030), USTR emailed Thursday. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request Aug. 6 asking the agency for copies of all emails, reports and any other physical or electronic documentation shared among the 17 members of the interagency Section 301 committee charged with deciding which tariffs would stay and which would go from the list released April 6. We sought documents that would shed light on the deliberations among the committee members that led the agency to spare TVs from the 25 percent tariffs. It’s “difficult to read the tea leaves” why the USTR’s office deleted 40 percent of the product lines from its first list of proposed tariffs, including TVs, said a trade expert in July, just after the first tranche of duties took effect (see 1807180058). The agency did an automated search of the records stash of four USTR officials who are on the committee using an “eDiscovery tool,” and also did a “manual search” but found no materials that were “responsive” to our FOIA request, it said. The four officials whose records the agency said it searched were: Arthur Tsao, assistant general counsel and lead attorney in the Section 301 tariffs proceedings; Julia Howe, director-China; William Busis, deputy assistant USTR for monitoring and enforcement, and chairman of the Section 301 committee; and Terry McCartin, assistant USTR for China affairs. The list of 818 tariff lines released June 15 for action starting July 6 was culled from the 1,333 tariff lines proposed April 6, said the USTR’s office then. The list, which was compiled “based on extensive interagency analysis and a thorough examination of comments and testimony from interested parties,” didn't include goods “commonly purchased by American consumers such as cellular telephones or televisions,” it said then.