SIA issues guidance on tariff exclusion process

The Security Industry Association (SIA) recently provided an update and info on the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)'s announcement of a process to obtain product exclusions from Section 301 tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods imported to the United States. In effect as of Friday, July 6, an additional 25 percent tariff applies to 56 tariff subheadings identified by SIA as impacting security-related products.

USTR is now considering exclusion requests “to address situations that warrant excluding a particular product within a subheading, but not the tariff subheading as a whole.”

Since exclusions will be made on a product and not a company basis, exclusions will apply to all imports of the product regardless of whether the importer filed a request.

The exclusion process has the following important dates and features:

• The public will have 90 days to file a request for a product exclusion; the request period will end on Tuesday, Oct. 9.
• Following public posting of the filed request on regulations.gov, the public will have 14 days to file responses to the request for product exclusion. After the close of the 14-day response period, interested persons will have an additional 7 days to reply to any responses received in support of or opposition to the request.
• Exclusions will be effective for one year upon the publication of the exclusion determination in the Federal Register and will apply retroactively to July 6.

In evaluating requests, USTR will consider whether:

• A product is available from a source outside of China
• The additional duties would cause severe economic harm to the requestor or other U.S. interests
• The particular product is strategically important or related to Chinese industrial programs including “Made in China 2025”

SIA wants to ensure affected members review the official notice and are aware of the opportunity for an exclusion via regulations.gov. Additionally, SIA asks members to share any specific products covered within these categories “that they believe may qualify for exclusion and are important to the U.S. security industry, in order to assist us in analyzing this issue.”

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