Article By: Rick Walker, Vice President, TradeInsights, LCB/CCS

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) opened a docket on October 15th where interested parties can request to temporarily exclude specific machinery used in domestic manufacturing and classified under 312 HTS subheadings from the Section 301 tariffs against imports from China. The Federal Register Notice in Annex E lists the 312 applicable HTS codes which are found in Chapters 84 and 85. The exclusion request portal will remain open through March 31, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. EST. Each request must identify a particular product (via a 10-digit HTSUS number and a complete and detailed description) and provide supporting data and the rationale for the requested exclusion. USTR will then evaluate each request on a case-by-case basis, considering the asserted rationale, whether the exclusion would undermine the objective of the Section 301 investigation, and whether the request defines the product with sufficient precision. Interested parties may file responses to individual exclusion requests within 30 days after the exclusion request is posted on the USTR’s online portal. The original requester may file a rebuttal to such a response by the later of 15 days after the posting of the response, or 15 days after the closing of the 30-day response period.

The docket can be found at the USTR Comments Portal at https://comments.ustr.gov/, and information on making a request has been published by the USTR. This information can be found in a PDF format here. The USTR also maintains a general webpage dedicated to the Section 301 tariffs at China Section 301-Tariff Actions and Exclusion Process (ustr.gov).

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