Article by: Rick Walker, Vice President, TradeInsights, LCB, CCS

On May 3, 2022 the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issued a Press Release and Federal Register Notice initiating a statutorily mandated four year review of the Section 301 China tariffs. The announcement initiates a timeline for the U.S. domestic industry to provide comments for supporting  the continuation of the China Section 301 duties.

It is important to note that this mandated review is not related to the current case in front of the Court of International Trade contesting the imposition of the third and fourth round of tariffs by the USTR.

The USTR four year review will be conducted in two phases: 1) accepting input from companies that support continuing the Section 301 tariffs; 2) a separate, second phase to accept input from those who want the tariffs to end. The USTR will later announce the time frames and process for input from companies opposing the Section 301 Tariffs. When this is announced we will issue an update accordingly.

In the announcement, the USTR stated “USTR is providing notice to representatives of domestic industries that benefit from the tariff actions through letters to interested parties that previously submitted comments in support of the tariff actions and through the issuance of a Federal Register notice.  Requests for continuation must be submitted prior to the four-year anniversary of the action, which is July 6, 2022, for the first action in the investigation.  If one or more requests for continuation are submitted, USTR will publish an additional notice after July 6 announcing the continuation of the tariff action and will proceed with a review of the tariffs.  The review will include an opportunity for all interested persons to provide comments.

If you are interested in submitting a request, please visit the USTR Comment Portal

Please contact your V. Alexander account team, or you may also contact our Trade Compliance team at tradeinsights@valexander.com with any questions.

Rick Walker, Vice President, TradeInsights, LCB, CCS

rwalker@valexander.com