CBP created Harmonized System Update 2521 on June 4, containing 73 Automated Broker Interface records and 35 Harmonized Tariff Schedule records. HSU 2521 includes Section 232 Aluminum and Steel tariff adjustments effective June 4.
CBP issued a pair of CSMS messages late June 3 clarifying the changes to the steel and aluminum tariffs.
CBP listed new Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings as subject to now 50% Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum derivatives, in attachments to its CSMS messages issued late June 3 offering guidance on the tariff increase.
Widespread problems with transmitting foreign-trade zone entries are one of several technical problems that plague customs brokers and compliance managers as the effects of the Trump administration's rapid policy changes make themselves felt. Compounding the difficulties is the administration's decision to pull back from engagement with the trade industry through its Trade Support Network and the cancellation of bi-weekly ACE calls.
House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich., said his vision of revoking Permanent Normal Trade Relations status for China is not to move Chinese goods to Column 2, but to create a new tariff schedule just for Chinese goods, with high rates reserved for strategic goods. Moolenaar, who has sponsored legislation to end PNTR (see 2501240061), described the approach he'd like to see at a Center for a New Security conference June 3.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of May 19-25 and May 26 - June 1:
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on June 2 said the Court of International Trade has exclusive jurisdiction via Section 1581(i) to hear California's challenge to all tariff action taken under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said President Donald Trump's executive orders implementing the tariffs are laws of the U.S. for purposes of Section 1581(i), since they modify the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, and the law implementing the HTS, 19 U.S.C. 3004, says the HTS includes modifications made by the president (State of California v. Trump, N.D. Cal. # 3:25-03372).
CBP created Harmonized System Update 2520 on May 31, containing 11 Automated Broker Interface records and three Harmonized Tariff Schedule records. HSU 2520 includes the extension of Section 301 Exclusions 9903.88.69 and 9903.88.70 to Aug. 31 and a partner government agency update.
President Donald Trump said that although the 25% tariffs on steel, and the recently hiked aluminum tariffs, have "helped provide critical price support" to domestic producers, the rates are not high enough to enable them "to develop and maintain the rates of capacity production utilization that are necessary for the industries' sustained health and for projected national defense needs." So those rates will increase to 50% at 12:01 a.m. EDT June 4.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has extended by three months certain current exclusions to its Section 301 investigation related to U.S. trade with China.