USTR Denies Most Waivers in GSP Review, Removing Many Goods From Eligibility

President Donald Trump issued Presidential Proclamation 9813 on Oct. 30, implementing the final results of the 2017-18 Generalized System of Preferences review and, in the process, making changes to tariff classification provisions for fruit juices. According to the recently issued results of the review, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is denying nearly all requests for waivers, removing nearly all country-product pairs that exceeded import limits from GSP eligibility.

Changes to the tariff schedule and tariff treatment from the proclamation take effect Nov. 1. USTR granted a petition to remove cherry juice from Turkey from GSP eligibility, and as a result new 8-digit subheading 2009.89.65 is being created for cherry juice with the special program indicator (SPI) “A*” to indicate GSP eligibility with some country exceptions. Former subheading 2009.89.60 for “other” fruit juice is deleted, and new subheading 2009.89.70 is being created for “other” fruit juice besides cherry juice (also designated A* due to an existing country exception for Ukraine). A second petition to remove from GSP eligibility nonadhesive plates, sheets, film, foil and strip of polymethyl methacrylate under subheading 3920.51.50 for Indonesia and Thailand was denied.

Petitions for New GSP Products Denied

In contrast with previous reviews, USTR denied nearly all petitions it received in the course of the 2017-18 review that would have resulted in increased duty preferences. All petitions to add new products to the GSP program were denied:

One Petition for Redesignation of Country-Product Pair Granted

Similarly, USTR denied all but one petition to redesignate a product as eligible for GSP. The only exception was ammonium perrhenate under subheading 2841.90.20 from Kazakhstan. For that subheading, the proclamation replaces SPI "A*" with SPI "A" to designate eligibility from all GSP beneficiaries. Results for petitions for redesignation are as follows:

Some Petitions Granted for CNL Waivers; All Petitions Denied for de Minimis Waivers

USTR did grant some petitions for waivers from competitive need limitations waivers, which means some products will continue to be eligible for GSP despite exceeding annual import limits. Results of the review for CNL waivers are as follows:

But in contrast to previous GSP reviews, all requests for de minimis waivers were denied by USTR. These waivers are usually granted in cases in which a single country exceeds import limits, but overall imports of the product from all countries fall below a specified limit. The denial of all de minimis waiver requests comes despite USTR's receipt of only a single formal objection, according to the ITC's comment request in the GSP review (see 1805240023). As a result of USTR's denials of waiver requests (or other reasons not detailed in the proclamation or USTR's notice), the following country-product pairs are now ineligible for GSP (and SPI "A" for any of these subheadings will be replaced with "A*"):