China

On August 7, 2018, the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced the second list of products that will be subject to an additional 25 percent tariff when imported from China.   After a public hearing and comment period, USTR ultimately only removed 5 tariff lines from the list proposed in its notice of June…

As previously reported, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issued a notice proposing an additional 10 percent tariff on approximately 6,000 8-digit tariff codes estimated to cover approximately $200 billion worth of imports from China. Our blog post can be found here and the list of products can be found here.

On…

The U.S. Trade Representative is proposing an additional 10 percent tariff on approximately 6,000 8-digit tariff codes estimated to be about $200 billion worth of imports.  The USTR has now set a third set of hearing and written submissions for those affected by this new set of proposed tariffs.  The schedule is as follows:

July…

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

…

On June 19, 2018, the Coalition for Fair Rack Imports filed a petition for the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of Steel Racks from the People’s Republic of China.

SCOPE OF THE INVESTIGATION

The merchandise covered by this investigation is steel racks and parts thereof, assembled or unassembled. Steel racks are racks made of steel of dimensions and configurations that can be adjusted as required, with or without locking tabs or slots, and with or without bolted, clamped, or welded connections, including any of the following: uprights, posts, columns, braces, frames, beams, arms, locking devices, and rails.

On Monday evening June 18, the U.S. Senate adopted draft legislation in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (the “2019 Defense Bill”) which would: (i) prevent the U.S. Department of Commerce – Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) from fulfilling its agreement to suspend current export controls applicable to Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment Corporation of Shenzen, China and ZTE Kangxun Telecommunications Ltd. of Hi-New Shenzhen, China (collectively “ZTE”), and (ii) expand existing language in the 2019 Defense Bill to prohibit all U.S. government agencies from contracting with ZTE.  The Senate approved this bill by a vote of 85-10.  After last night’s vote, it has been reported that ZTE shares have dropped more than 25%.  The U.S. House and Senate will still need to reconcile the differences in their versions of the 2019 Defense Bill before they send it to the President, but if they can do so while retaining enough votes to override a Presidential veto then BIS will be unable to remove ZTE from the Denied Persons list and ZTE will continue to be subject to export and re-export prohibitions in transactions involving U.S. origin goods, software and technology.

On Friday, June 15, 2018, President Trump announced that the US would be imposing a 25% tariff on Chinese technology imports. The tariffs were originally proposed on March 22, 2018 as a result of a Section 301 investigation of China’s Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation. See our original post here.

Tariffs will be imposed on certain products starting on July 6, 2018.  Those products are listed here and consist of a subset of the products proposed on March 22. 

On June 7, 2018, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced that Chinese Telecommunications companies, Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment Corporation of Shenzen, China and ZTE Kangxun Telecommunications Ltd. of Hi-New Shenzhen, China (collectively “ZTE”) have agreed to pay $1 billion and place an additional $400 million in suspended penalty money in escrow in order to be removed from the Denied Persons List.  This penalty payment is in addition to the over $850 million in penalties that ZTE already previously paid to multiple U.S. government agencies in March of 2017 when it first entered into a settlement agreement arising out of its illegal re-exportation of controlled U.S. origin telecommunications equipment to Iran and other prohibited destinations.