On Friday, July 6, 2018, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced a process for obtaining product exclusions from the 25% tariffs imposed on certain products imported from China.  The tariffs went into effect on July 6, 2018.

USTR has set the following deadlines:

  • All product exclusion requests must be filed by October 9, 2018.
  • Following the public posting of a request on Regulations.gov, the public will have 14 days to file responses to the product exclusion request. After the close of the 14 day response period, interested persons will have an additional 7 days to file a reply.

Exclusions will be effective for one year upon the publication of the exclusion determination in the Federal Register, and will apply retroactively to July 6, 2018.

The federal register notice announcing the new process and providing additional information can be found here.

For additional information, please contact Stephen Brophy, Nithya Nagarajan, or Jeffrey S. Neeley.