Right after the financial markets closed, the United States Trade Representative ("USTR") released a list of products from China that may be hit with 25 percent retaliatory duties. The USTR's announcement can be found
here.
This action follows the earlier proclamation of an intent to take retaliatory action by President Trump that was the subject of our earlier alert
here.
The announcement by the USTR provides the Harmonized Tariff Codes ("HTS codes") of the imported articles proposed for inclusion on the retaliation list.
The USTR is inviting public comments, due May 11, and will hold a public hearing on May 15. Parties wishing to appear at the hearing must notify the USTR by April 23.
The USTR has previously stated that today's announcement of the draft list would start a 60-day time period to consider public comment and finalize the list. Today's announcement makes no mention of this 60-day period but the schedule for comments and rebuttal set forth in the notice appears to align with wrapping up the retaliation list phase in 60-days. 60 days from today is June 2 (a Saturday so it may bump to the following Monday).
It is not known whether retaliatory duties would be applied immediately or whether there would be a grace period for goods in the pipeline. Such a grace period would be especially appropriate for items that are added on to the final list without public notice.
On that note, it is expected that comments will be filed requesting the USTR to REMOVE items from the retaliation list. Please understand that the USTR is seeking to reach a $50 billion of Chinese imports in the final retaliation list. This means that
if parties are successful in having products removed from the retaliation list, the USTR may add new products onto the list that do not appear on this draft list.
Please let us know if you see products on the proposed retaliation list that affect your company.
If you have any questions, please let us know.
For more information, please contact:
