August 2020

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) issued extensions for previously granted product exclusions under List 4 of the Section 301 tariffs on imports from China.  USTR is extending the duty exemptions for only 87 of the approximately 248 product exclusions published to date under List 4, allowing for more than 150 to expire on September 1, 2020. The products for which exclusions have not been extended will be subject to the 7.5% tariff beginning on September 2, 2020.

On August 21, 2020, the United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and European Union (EU) Commissioner Phil Hogan issued a joint statement, announcing that both parties would reduce tariffs on certain goods. Specifically, the EU has agreed to eliminate tariffs on imports of U.S. live and frozen lobster products. The elimination of these tariffs…

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) issued two (2) new product exclusions pertaining to the Section 301 List 3 tariffs.  The current tariff is 25%.  The new exclusions include 2 specific product descriptions that together cover 2 separate exclusion requests.  According to the USTR, the product exclusions apply retroactively from September 24, 2018…

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) has announced that it is further restricting access by Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and its designated non-U.S. affiliates (“Huawei”) to U.S.-produced technology and software.  As we have previously discussed, BIS first added Huawei to its Entity List on May 15, 2019 and has continued to impose additional export restrictions on Huawei under the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”).  Most recently, BIS published a Federal Register notice to implement the following enhancements.  Although BIS published this Federal Register notice on August 20, 2020, the following rule changes took effect retroactively as of August 17, 2020:

The United States is formally demanding that the United Nations (U.N.) reimpose sanctions on Iran for its failure to meet commitments to limit its nuclear program set forth under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).  U.N. sanctions on Iran were lifted in 2015 as part of the terms of the JCPOA, which included the United States, European Union, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China as signatories.  The U.S. formally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and reinstated sanctions on Iran.

On August 10, 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a notice announcing that goods produced in Hong Kong and exported to the U.S. must now be marked as a product of China (e.g., Made in China), which we covered in a previous post here.  The marking changes were originally set…

The U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) announced in a Federal Register notice that it is proposing significant changes to its antidumping and countervailing duty regulations.  The last time such sweeping changes were undertaken were in 1997 after the WTO went into effect.  Commerce is requesting comments on the proposed changes by September 14, 2020.

Among the most significant changes outlined in Commerce’s proposal are the changes to its conduct of scope proceedings, which determine whether a certain product is subject to the scope of an AD or CVD order; and to circumvention proceedings where importers are alleged to be avoiding duties, often by using components from the subject country to assemble the product in another country not subject to the relevant AD/CVD order. Currently, both types of proceedings are governed by the same set of regulations in 19 C.F.R. §351.225.  Commerce’s proposal would separate the two proceedings into unique regulatory frameworks.