The Trump Administration announced tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods will go into effect on September 1.
President Trump announced on August 1 that he will impose a 10% additional tariff on List 4 goods from China, effective September 1, 2019. The extensive list of 3,805 full and partial HTSUS subheadings was originally published in the Federal Register in May and covers essentially all products not already subject to the Section 301 tariffs. It includes apparel, footwear, manufactured textile products, appliances, electronics, tools, household goods, jewelry, personal hygiene products, and recreational equipment, but excludes pharmaceuticals, certain pharmaceutical inputs, select medical goods, critical minerals, and rare earth materials. To view the full list, click here.
Trump had postponed the additional tariffs on List 4 on July 1 following a successful round of negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit, but reversed his decision when Xi failed to uphold commitments made by the Chinese delegation to increase agricultural imports and cease its exports of fentanyl.
The President tweeted “Our representatives have just returned from China where they had constructive talks having to do with a future Trade Deal. We thought we had a deal with China three months ago, but sadly, China decided to re-negotiate the deal prior to signing. More recently, China agreed to buy agricultural product from the U.S. in large quantities, but did not do so. Additionally, my friend President Xi said that he would stop the sale of Fentanyl to the United States – this never happened, and many Americans continue to die! Trade talks are continuing, and during the talks the U.S. will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300 Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China into our Country. This does not include the 250 Billion Dollars already Tariffed at 25%. We look forward to continuing our positive dialogue with China on a comprehensive Trade Deal, and feel that the future between our two countries will be a very bright one!”
While no formal announcement has yet been issued by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, our sources say we should not expect to see any changes to List 4. For now, we anticipate that goods must arrive and be released by Customs on or before August 31, 2019 in order to avoid the tariff action. Importers of affected goods should carefully examine export dates and projected arrival dates to minimize the impact of the tariffs and to avoid supply chain disruption.
A Federal Register notice which will provide additional details is expected to be released soon.
OCEANAIR will continue to monitor the situation and will provide status updates as they become available.
Should you have any questions regarding the impending tariffs or how they may affect your imports, please feel free to contact a member of our Compliance Department at Compliance@oceanair.net.
