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After weeks of stalemate, the U.S. and China agreed over the weekend to restart trade negotiations, with the Trump administration announcing that it will postpone tariffs on an additional $300 billion in Chinese imports (List 4) for the time being. While the action does not end the trade war, NMMA welcomed the ceasefire and simultaneously encouraged stakeholders impacted by List 3 ($200 billion) of the Section 301 tariffs to utilize the recently established exclusion process – click here to access the web portal for submitting exclusion requests.

According to U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) instructions, exclusion requests can be submitted until Monday, September 30, 2019. The noticed released by USTR also provides detailed instructions for the exclusion process as well as the form to be used for submitting exclusion requests.

USTR has previously stated that it expects to receive 60,000 exclusion requests for List 3 products – more than four times the number of requests received for List 1 and 2 combined. For prior lists, USTR has tended to provide decisions most quickly to requests received early in the process. NMMA stands ready to help all stakeholders navigate the exclusion process and will submit letters in support of requests.

With details from the agreement between President Trump and President Xi still emerging and nearly $250 billion in goods from China continuing to face a 25 percent tariff, NMMA will remain vigilant and provide additional updates as the situation unfolds. For more information, please contact NMMA senior vice president of government and legal affairs, Nicole Vasilaros at [email protected] or NMMA director of government relations, Clay Crabtree at [email protected].