U.S. Trade Rep to Hear Section 301 Tariff Comments

WASHINGTON – Critics and supporters of the controversial Section 301 tariffs on a vast list of Chinese goods – including natural-stone and manufactured hard surfaces – will have a chance to comment on the actions, beginning next month.

The move, officially announced today by the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), comes four years after the original tariff applications and a very large chain of lawsuits challenging them.

As noted in today’s Federal Register, the USTR will open an online docket on Nov. 15 to receive comments on the tariffs and will accept submissions through next Jan. 17. All comments must be made through the website.

The USTR will also offer a list of questions for the docket to aid comment preparation. Those questions should be available by Nov. 1 at https://comments.USTR.gov; that URL will also serve as the entrance to the public docket two weeks later.

The docket will address the effectiveness of the tariffs on Chinese policy, the impacts on U.S. businesses and consumers, and suggestions for other actions that could be taken.

Comments may also include Business Confidential Information (BCI). Submissions to the docket will be available for public inspection, but BCI will be redacted.

The USTR is offering the comment period as part of the four-year review of Section 301 tariff authorizations. During the summer of 2018, the USTR – under the authorization of the Trump administration – imposed the tariffs as part of a strategy to reach a new overall trade agreement with China.

At that time, the USTR determined, according to the Federal Register notice, “that acts, policies, and practices of the Government of China related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation are unreasonable or discriminatory, and burden or restrict U.S. commerce,” which then allows the Section 301 actions.

The tariffs, applied in stages through set lists, originally included $34 billion of Chinese goods (List 1) imported annually in June 2018, followed by the addition of $16 billion more (as List 2) in August 2018. The USTR then moved to include approximately $200 billion more of annual Chinese exports to the United States under List 3 (at 25%) and List 4 (at 7.5%), although that $200 billion figure is not included in today’s Federal Register announcement.

At the start of the four-year review this summer, the USTR had the option of rescinding the Section 301 duties, but only with no objection from any representative of any U.S. industry benefiting from the tariffs. After receiving 489 comments – with an overwhelming majority favoring the tariffs – the USTR announced on Sept. 8 that the tariffs would continue.

Before the review, however, the Section 301 actions sparked legal challenges from importers of Chinese goods, claiming the USTR failed to follow proper procedures. Those arguments eventually led to the filing of more than 3,600 individual lawsuits (including more than 30 from hard-surface importers) at the U.S. Court of International Trade, where the matter is still pending.

The Section 301 tariffs are unrelated to the unfair-trade tariffs assessed by the U.S. International Trade Commission on Chinese quartz surfaces and porcelain since 2018.