International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
A Federal Register notice that will be made public this week will announce decisions on which of the current Section 301 tariff exclusions can continue, according to Brian Janovitz, chief counsel for China trade enforcement in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The automotive industry's inadequate due diligence controls for Uyghur forced labor make it complicit in the abuse, the Senate Finance Committee charged in a report that criticizes three customers of a firm on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entity list -- Volkswagen, BMW and Jaguar Land Rover.
Many importers who were hit with Section 301 tariffs six years ago expected they would be rolled back in 18 months or two or three years, said Nicole Bivens Collinson, director of Sandler Travis's international trade and government relations practice. Then, once that didn't happen, they thought they'd see what happened in the Biden administration.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is eliminating 12 general approved exclusions from Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, it said in a final rule released May 17.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Senate appropriators that a proposed rule on connected vehicles should come out in the fall.
The exclusion from solar safeguard tariffs for bifacial solar panels -- originally meant to help utility-scale installations -- is about to end, the Biden administration announced May 16.
With the addition of 26 firms that source cotton from Xinijang, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act's Entity List now has 36 textile firms -- more than half of the list.
The restriction that products that owe Section 301 tariffs will not be able to avoid Column 1 tariffs through the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill could greatly reduce how much money is saved by importers.
Section 301 China tariff changes outlined by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative May 14 will take effect approximately 90 days after a request for comments that will be issued next week. That includes a 100% tariff on Chinese-origin electric vehicles, as well as the jump to 25% Section 301 tariffs on steel and aluminum products, ship to shore cranes, lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries, battery parts for non-lithium-ion batteries, "some critical minerals" and face masks, and a bump to 50% tariffs on solar cells, syringes and needles, the White House said in a fact sheet.