Section 301 Update: USTR Grants Exclusion Requests Covering More Than 950 Products -

As we previously reported, in July 2018, the United States Trade Representative (“USTR”) announced that it was establishing a process by which interested parties could request that their imports from China be excluded from the scope of the tariffs imposed on them under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Pursuant to this process, interested persons could submit exclusion requests for the first group of products covered by the Section 301 tariffs until October 9, 2018.

USTR announced a similar exclusion process for the second group of products covered by the Section 301 tariffs in September 2018. In that announcement, USTR stated that parties could submit exclusion requests for this group of products until December 18, 2018. USTR explained that it would grant the requests after evaluating several factors, including whether the product covered by the request was available from non-Chinese suppliers and whether the tariffs caused severe economic harm to requesting party. So far, USTR has received more than 11,000 exclusion requests from importers and purchasers affected by the tariffs.