In a sudden announcement after 8pm on Friday May 31, 2019, the President made the anticipated decision that India was to be removed from the Generalized System of Preferences (“GSP”), effective June 5, 2019. The statement issued by the White House claims that the President had “determined that India has not assured the United States that India will provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets.” The end of the GSP eligibility and removal of India’s developing country status comes after holding that status for approximately 30 years and is a deepening indication of the U.S.’s increased protectionist stance in the global trade environment. To see our full post on India losing its GSP status, click here.
Late Friday, May 31, 2019, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) announced that they would extend the time frame for the application of increased tariffs on shipments of goods exported from China prior to May 10, 2019. The increase from 10% to 25% in duties was announced on May 8th and was set to be applicable on all imports starting on June 1, 2019. The USTR has now revised its earlier announcement and has stated that shipments must be entered before midnight on June, 15, 2019 in order to remain subject to the 10% duty rate. Any entries after midnight on June 15, 2019 will be subject to the increased rate of 25% announced on May 8, 2019. To see our full post on the issue, click here.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced on June 19, 2019 an exclusion process for product exclusions from the tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese products (“List 3”). The exclusion process will open at noon (EDT) on June 30, 2019.
The exclusion process for List 3 will be slightly different from the process involved for the List 1 and List 2 exclusions. USTR is opening a portal at http://exclusions.USTR.gov/ for requestors to file exclusion requests and interested parties to comment on them. Among other information, the questions in the exclusion request form will require data on the company’s gross revenues, percentage of total gross sales for which the requested product accounted, and the amount of sourcing of the product from domestic or third-country suppliers. To see our full post and key dates for the Section 301 3 exclusion process, click here.
On June 25, 2019, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) announced the reallocation of the unused country-specific and first-come, first-served in-quota allocations under the tariff-rate quotas (“TRQs”) on imported raw cane sugar for the 2019 Fiscal Year (“FY”). The in-quota quantity for the TRQ on raw cane sugar for the 2019 Fiscal Year is 1,117,195 metric tons raw value. The USTR determined to reallocate 100,071 of the original TRQ to countries who have stated that they do not plan to fill their FY 2019 allocated raw cane sugar quantities. To see a full list of the countries the USTR is allocating the sugar to, click here.
