USTR Issues Product Exclusions Across First Three Tranches of Section 301 Tariffs

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative issued three new sets of product exclusions from the 25 percent Section 301 tariffs on goods from China. The exclusions include products from the first three lists of Section 301 goods. The new exclusions from the first tranche include "310 specially prepared product descriptions" and cover 724 separate requests, according to the notice. The second tranche exclusions include 89 product descriptions and covers 400 requests, while the third tranche exclusions include 38 product descriptions that cover 46 exclusion requests, the agency said.

While the first two sets of exclusions apply for a year following publication in the Federal Register, the third tranche exclusions will expire on Aug. 7, 2020, the agency said. The USTR did that because allowing for a full year of those exclusions "would have resulted in disparities in the effective periods between exclusions granted early in the exclusion process and those granted later," the agency said.

The product exclusions apply retroactively to when each tranche initially took effect. That was July 6, 2018, for the first tranche, Aug. 23, 2018, for the second tranche and Sept. 24, 2018, for the third.