Details of USTR's List of Country/Tariff Pairs that May Lose GSP due to CNLs
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is providing advanced notice of 24 country/tariff number pairs that may exceed the 2011 Competitive Need Limitations (CNLs) under the Generalized System of Preferences program and could possibly lose their GSP eligibility on July 1, 2012.
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(See ITT’s Online Archives 11113024 for initial summary announcing this list.)
CNL Waivers Must be Requested by Dec 16 Using Interim Data
The 24 pairs listed by USTR were selected based on interim January -- September 2011 data, and are announced to the public so that CNL waivers may be requested by the December 16, 2011, 5 p.m. deadline. Any decisions regarding GSP eligibility for these and other pairs will be based on full calendar year 2011 data, which will be available in February 2012.
Two Types of CNLs and Two General Types of CNL Waivers
There are two types of CNLs for GSP beneficiary developing countries1 - the value CNL ($150 million in imports for a country/tariff number pair in 2011) and the 50% CNL (equal to or greater than 50% of the annual value of total U.S. imports of the tariff number from all countries). If either CNL is exceeded for a country/tariff number pair, the President must terminate GSP duty-free treatment for articles classified under that tariff number from the BDC by no later than July 1 of the next calendar year, which in this case is July 1, 2012.
However these CNLs may be waived, and GSP retained for a pair, in one of two ways. First, the President may waive the CNLs if a waiver petition is filed by an interested party before the pair exceeds the CNLs. (For 2011, such petitions must be filed by December 16 at 5 p.m.).
Second, the President may issue a de minimis waiver for the 50% CNL if the value of total imports of that article from all countries during the calendar year did not exceed the applicable de minimis amount for that year ($20.5 million for 2011). No petition needs to be filed for a de minimis waiver as they are considered by the President automatically.
24 Pairs that May Exceed a CNL Listed by USTR
The USTR lists 24 GSP-eligible country/tariff number pairs that, based upon interim nine-month 2011 data, exceed $100 million dollars in imports or an amount greater than 42 percent of the total value of U.S. imports of that product.
(As these thresholds are lower than the 2011 CNLs, and the data is only based on the first nine months of 2011, the list may include pairs that will not exceed the CNLs when full calendar year 2011 data is available.)
The country and HTS pairs are as follows (a general description of the tariff number is also provided; see list for the value of the imports to date from the BDC and from all sources):
| 0410.00.00 | Indonesia | edible products of animal origin from Indonesia |
| 0811.90.50 | Philippines | pineapples, frozen, in water or containing added sweetening |
| 1602.50.20 | Argentina | prepared or preserved beef in airtight containers, other than corned beef, not containing cereals or vegetables |
| 2102.20.60l | Brazil | single-cell micro-organisms, dead, excluding yeasts (but not including vaccines of heading 2003) |
| 2106.90.99 | Thailand | food preparations not elsewhere specified or included, not canned or frozen |
| 2207.10.30 | Brazil | undenatured ethyl alcohol of 80% volume alcohol or higher, for beverage purposes |
| 2840.19.00 | Turkey | disodium tetraborate (refined borax), except anhydrous |
| 905.49.10 | India | triols and tetrols |
| 2909.50.40 | Indonesia | odoriferous or flavoring compounds of ether-phenols, ether-alcohol-phenols and their halogenated, sulfonated, nitrated, nitrosated derivatives |
| 2921.19.60 | Philippines | other acyclic monoamines and their derivatives |
| 2922.41.00 | Brazil | amino-naphthols and amino-phenol, their ethers, esters, except those with more than one kind of oxygen function, and salts thereof |
| 3307.41.00 | India | “agarbatti” and other odoriferous preparations which operate by burning, to perfume or deodorize rooms or used during religious rites |
| 4015.19.10 | Thailand | seamless gloves of vulcanized rubber other than hard rubber, other than surgical or medical gloves |
| 4107.19.50 | Brazil | whole upholstery leather of bovines (not buffalo) and equines, without hair on, prepared after tanning or crusting, not of heading 4114 |
| 7202.21.50 | Russia | ferrosilicon containing by weight more than 55% but not more than 80% of silicon |
| 7202.30.00 | Georgia | ferrosilicon manganese |
| 7202.99.20 | Argentina | calcium silicon ferroalloys |
| 7307.91.50 | India | iron or steel (other than stainless), not cast, flanges for tubes/pipes, not forged or forged and machined, tooled and processed after forging |
| 7601.10.30 | Venezuela | aluminum (other than alloy), unwrought, in coils, with uniform cross-section throughout length and with least cross-sectional dimension not over 9.5 mm |
| 7606.12.30 | Indonesia | aluminum alloy, plates/sheets/strip, with thickness over 0.2mm, rectangular (including square), not clad |
| 8415.10.90 | Thailand | window or wall type air conditioning machines, split-system |
| 8415.90.80 | Thailand | parts for air conditioning machines |
| 8481.80.90 | Thailand | taps, cocks, valves and similar appliances for pipes, boiler shells, tanks, vats or the like, other than hand operated |
| 8708.30.50 | India | parts and accessories of motor vehicles of headings 8701 and 8702-8705, brakes and servo-brakes and parts thereof |
Trade Should Research ITC Site for Additional Items, Updated Info
USTR notes that exclusions for exceeding a CNL are based on full 2011 calendar year import statistics, which will not be available from the International Trade Commission until February 2012. USTR sources strongly suggest that those considering submitting a petition research the trade statistics themselves, as USTR’s information is provided as a courtesy for informational purposes only.
The sources also suggest researching close to the December 16 deadline, as by then, ten months of import data should be available on the ITC’s website here.
1Note that the CNLs do not apply to GSP least developed beneficiary developing countries (LDBDCs) or AGOA beneficiary sub-Saharan African countries.
(See ITT’s Online Archives 11110211 for summary of USTR notice on 2011 GSP Annual Review, which also listed the December 16 deadline. See ITT’s Online Archives 11102103 for summary of the signing of H.R. 2832 which retroactively extended the GSP program through July 31, 2013.)
USTR interim 2011 import statistics available here
USTR May 2011 GSP Guidebook available here.
USTR contact - Donnette Rimmer (202) 395-9618
(FR Pub 12/01/11)