41 Senators Ask USTR to Open Broad Exclusion Process
Almost half of the Senate's Republicans and a third of its Democrats are asking U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to open an exclusion process for all importers of Chinese goods covered by Section 301 tariffs, and to presumptively exclude any product of which nearly all the imports are coming from China. Lead authors Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., say that if importers haven't moved out of China after years of higher tariffs, that "suggests that moving these supply chains out of China is uniquely unlikely, and that our efforts to diversify production locales and reshore manufacturing would be better spent on other products."
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
Roughly $250 billion worth of Chinese imports annually are subject to an additional 25% tariff under Section 301; another $112 billion worth of imports are subject to an additional 7.5% tariff.
The 41 senators -- 17 Democrats and 24 Republicans -- wrote: "We have all heard from constituents about the impacts of the tariffs and importance of having a chance to apply for a tariff exclusion."
Tai received a similar letter from about a third of House members in January (see 2201200019). Both letters note that the current exclusion process, announced Oct. 12, 2021, only covers 1% of the imports subject to Section 301 tariffs. "The exclusion process should prioritize transparency, speed, consistency and fairness," they said.
They also complained that the retroactivity for the few exclusions that may be offered is too limited, given that it doesn't cover about 10 months' worth of imports. "For exclusions granted under the current round, we urge you to expand the retroactivity of relief back to the exclusion’s expiration date," they said, and said that the shorter retroactivity period makes no sense, and "imposes an unnecessary cash crunch on businesses."
A USTR official said that the Oct. 12 date was chosen because going back to the expiration date would mean some entries would have been liquidated by the time USTR issued its decision on an exclusion renewal, and trying to refund tariffs on liquidated entries is an administrative challenge (see 2110120055). The Office of U.S. Trade Representative didn't comment.