USTR Adding GSP Benefits for Travel Goods
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is authorizing tariff benefits for travel goods in Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) subheading 4202 under the Generalized System of Preferences, USTR said (see 1706290053). “According to the information provided in the course of USTR’s review, making travel goods GSP-eligible for all GSP beneficiaries is expected to be neutral with respect to overall U.S. import levels, and therefore also to the U.S. trade balance, though this action may shift some of the overseas production of these products from non-GSP countries to GSP countries,” USTR said in a statement. The White House also released a presidential proclamation on GSP and other duty-free treatment (here).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
The list (here) also includes USTR’s decisions to add other products to GSP, including certain rolled grains, essential oils of lemon, and finishing agents, dye carriers and other preparations used in leather and like industries. USTR also granted GSP eligibility for glycine and because of competitive need limitations (CNLs) is deciding to exclude from GSP setts, curbstones and flagstones, of natural stone (except slate) from Turkey, as well as certain pesticides from India. USTR is granting its only CNL waiver for coniferous wood continuously shaped along any of its ends from Brazil. USTR also posted 100 product-country combinations eligible for de minimis waivers. The changes take effect July 1.
USTR is also self-initiating a review of Bolivia’s compliance with GSP eligibility criteria related to child labor, removing certain products from the GSP where the subject country is “sufficiently competitive and no longer need[s] tariff preferences to compete in the U.S. market,” and is adding several “non-import sensitive” products to the GSP, all of which are inputs in U.S. manufacturing.
"Today’s announcement is a welcome move that will provide major benefits to U.S. companies, U.S. workers, and U.S. consumers," said Rick Helfenbein, CEO of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, in an emailed news release. "AAFA has long supported efforts to include travel goods under the GSP program, and while last year’s decision by the Obama Administration was an important adjustment, it did not go far enough, and did not meet the original intent that Congress had targeted for this important GSP initiative." The Obama administration deferred decisions on whether to add travel goods to GSP last June (see 1607010008).