The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Nov. 20. The following headquarters rulings were modified recently, according to CBP:
Section 301 (too broad)
Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden's choice for secretary of state, has said that the Section 301 tariffs on China and Section 232 tariffs on Europe “harm our own people,” according to coverage of a U.S. Chamber of Commerce talk he gave in September. “We would use tariffs when they’re needed, but backed by a strategy and a plan,” he added. Blinken, who served as deputy secretary of state under President Barack Obama, said, “The EU is the largest market in the world. We need to improve our economic relations, and we need to bring to an end an artificial trade war that the Trump administration has started,” Reuters reported from the Chamber talk.
C.H. Robinson “identified potential savings for its customers of roughly $980 million related to exclusion refunds” since the first Section 301 tariffs were put in place in 2018, the company said in a recent news release. Some 96% of those are “product-specific which require a more complex, time-consuming analysis for qualification,” it said. “The U.S.-China trade war has added another layer of complexity to what has been a challenging global transportation market over the past year,” said Mike Short, president of global forwarding at C.H. Robinson. “As we have consulted with businesses of all sizes, it’s clear that the biggest barriers to duty recovery for these companies are a lack of time, data, and expertise to navigate the complex and lengthy application process.” The last of the exclusions expire Dec. 31.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
Implementation of the USMCA isn't the level of change that's expected to add costs to Toyota, according to Leila Afas, director of international policy for Toyota North America. “We fortunately are in a very good position,” she said in response to a question from International Trade Today during a Nov. 19 webinar hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. She said Toyota sources a lot of its engines and transmissions in the U.S.
Complaint filings at the Court of International Trade seeking to have the Section 301 lists 3 and 4A tariff rulemakings vacated and the duties refunded (see 2009210025) slowed to a trickle in November, with fewer than 10 filed within the last two weeks. Of the roughly 3,700 complaints filed since Sept. 10, about 140 have been filed since Sept. 24. That’s the two-year anniversary date of List 3 taking effect and was within the statute of limitations that many lawyers cited under court rules to establish the timeliness of their actions. A plaintiff must file an action within two years “after the cause of action accrues,” court rules say. Lawyers in the subsequent actions will try to establish that the clock started when their importer clients first paid the tariffs.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 9-15:
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is making minor changes to product exclusions from Section 301 tariffs on products from China. The agency said it is amending an exclusion from List 2 tariffs for certain goods of subheading 8407.90.9010 so that it now refers to “Gas (natural or liquid propane (LP))” engines, instead of “Gasoline or liquid propane (LP)” engines. The change affects U.S. Note 20(o)(14), which provided for this exclusion for entries Aug. 23, 2018, through July 31, 2020, as well as U.S. Note 20(ggg)(4), which provides for the exclusion as extended to Dec. 31, 2020, USTR said in notices released Nov. 17. Subheading 8407.90.9010 covers “Gas (natural or LP) engines,” so the changes appear to align the exclusion with the language in the underlying tariff provision.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Nov. 9-13 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
While it seems clear that Joe Biden wants to “team up with our allies” to confront China, less clear is how that will work in reality, Mayer Brown international trade lawyer Tim Keeler said during a Nov. 17 Mayer Brown webinar about trade policy in the incoming administration. Keeler, who is a former chief of staff in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said a majority of Congress believes the Section 301 tariffs have been a source of leverage, while the European Union thinks the tariffs violated World Trade Organization rules.