Bill Introduced to Refund Tariffs on Airbus Retaliation List and Prevent Tariffs for Goods on Water
Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., introduced a bill that would refund tariffs on imports that were hit with 25% tariffs during the Airbus-Boeing dispute, and also would prevent tariffs from being applied to goods on the water in the future.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The Fair Tariff Act of 2022 has a House companion bill introduced in September. It covers products with the Harmonized Tariff Schedule codes of 9903.89.10, 9903.89.13, 9903.89.16, 9903.89.19, 12 9903.89.22, 9903.89.25, 9903.89.28, 9903.89.31, 9903.89.34, 9903.89.37, 9903.89.40, 9903.89.43, 9903.89.46, or 9903.89.49 that entered from Oct. 18, 2019, to Dec. 17, 2019, and products with the HTS codes of 9903.89.57, 9903.89.59, 9903.89.61 or 9903.89.63 entered from Jan. 12, 2021, to March 13, 2021.
Some of these entries have already been liquidated, so CBP would be ordered to reliquidate the entries to make the refunds of the 25% Section 301 tariffs possible.
The bill, whose full name is For Accurate Import Relief to Aid Retailers and Importers of Foreign Freights Act of 2022, also would forbid the Office of U.S. Trade Representative to impose tariffs under Section 301 on goods until 60 days after a Federal Register notice lays out which products will be targets of the action. This would prevent future instances of importers having to pay Section 301 tariffs for goods that are already en route to U.S. ports.
“Referees shouldn’t change the rules in the middle of a game and tariffs shouldn’t change in the middle of a shipment. Employers need certainty. This bill gives certainty,” Cassidy said in a Dec. 1 news release.
The same release quoted trade groups that support the legislation, including the Association of Food Industries. Its president, Bob Bauer, said many of his members had to pay tariffs on goods on the water at the time they learned the tariffs applied, even though the China Section 301 tariff action had exempted shipments that were en route. If this bill passes, that wouldn't happen again, he said.