CBP Support for Section 301 Exclusion Consideration on Hold During Shutdown

CBP is unable to provide support to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in reviewing Section 301 product exclusion requests during the partial federal government shutdown, and no more exclusions are expected while the funding impasse continues, said John Leonard, CBP executive director-trade policy and programs, during a Jan. 9 conference call with industry. CBP provides USTR with input and analysis on the feasibility of excluding individual products from the Section 301 tariffs. "That process is not happening" during the shutdown, he said. The USTR issued the first set of Section 301 product exclusions in December (see 1812240010), though CBP remains unable to implement the exclusions during the shutdown (see 1812310007).

There's an ongoing issue with changes to the units of measurement within the Harmonized Tariff Schedule update, Leonard said. Usually, any unit of measurement errors would be worked out with the International Trade Commission and corrected in the ITC annex, but the entire ITC and CBP's employees working on the HTS are furloughed. For example, the unit of measure for grams was changed from "g" to "gm," but it still means gram, Leonard said. "I think we had heard that there possibly could be 300 or so of those changes," he said. There's not much to be done for the time being and those issues will be sorted out after the shutdown ends. CBP issued a tariff update on Dec. 19, but the ITC has not issued its annual HTS update due to the ongoing shutdown (see 1901040022).

CBP's employees in the Office of Regulatory Audit are furloughed and all audits are paused as a result, Leonard said. That means any planned audit activity is postponed even if there was no communication to the importer, Leonard said. "Once we're back up and running, then the regulatory auditors will reach out and talk about rescheduling them, but until such time, they are not happening," Leonard said. Even so, "if you've got timelines on pending audits where documents and records were asked for, our recommendation is that you adhere to those original dates just to protect yourself."

During the call, there were some industry reports of CBP only receiving cargo during limited hours at the Port of New York and New Jersey. CBP officials on the call said they weren't aware of that issue and would need to check it out. Jim Swanson, CBP director-cargo and conveyance security and controls, asked that any documents reflecting the limited cargo hours issue be forwarded to him.

Food and Drug Administration Director of Import Operations and Policy John Verbeten also provided an update during the call. "FDA's operations continue in the import realm," he said. "We're doing the prior notice review, our entry review, sampling and examination of high-risk shipments and compliance activities." There are no plans to stop covering the ports for FDA-regulated products going forward, but if there were, the agency would make a national announcement, he said.