U.S. Senate Passes Significant Trade Act Legislation Including Reinstatement of Section 301 Exclusions
Source
American Shipper
Post Date
06/15/2021
June 14, 2021
On Wednesday, June 9th, the U.S. Senate passed an Amment to S. 1260 (The Endless Frontier Act), which adds the provisions of the Trade Act of 2021 to the legislation. The Trade Act of 2021 consists of over 800 pages of comprehensive trade provisions. Among other priorities, the Act aims to:
? Establish a new process for excluding articles imported from the People¡¯s Republic of China from duties imposed under section 301, including consideration of:
o Whether the failure to grant the exclusion would result in severe economic harm to the requester.
o Whether the article or a reasonable substitute is not commercially available to the requester.
o Whether the imposition of the duty with respect to the article would unreasonably increase consumer prices for day-to-day items consumed by low- or middle-income families in the United States.
o Whether the imposition of the duty would have an unreasonable impact on manufacturing output of the United States.
o Whether the imposition of the duty would have an unreasonable impact on the ability of an entity to fulfill contracts or to build critical infrastructure.
o Whether the failure to grant the exclusion is likely to result in a particular entity or entities having the ability to abuse a dominant market position.
? Require the USTR to make a decision on a request within a specific period of time or the request will be presumed to be granted.
? Establish that if an exclusion request is denied, a reasoned determination for denying the request must be provided.
? Reinstate exclusions for products that previously received an exclusion, with retroactive effect back to December of 2020, provided a request is filed with U.S. Customs and Border Protection not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.
? Reauthorize and reform the Generalized System of Preferences.
? Implement the tariff rate suspensions on some 1,400 plus article under the Miscellaneous Trade Bill (MTB) of 2020.
? Prevent importation of goods produced by child and forced labor, including seafood and seafood products harvested or produced using forced labor.
? Increase inspections of imports of goods from countries that are top sources of counterfeit goods. The bill now heads to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration of the comprehensive legislation.
