Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of action from all over the world when it comes to tariff news, a key area of attention for anyone in the import/export industry.
Despite some reports that a new trade deal with China could be closed, Beijing is now threatening to use the justifications in a WTO ruling as justification for potential raise on more than $2 billion of US exports to China. This came as a result of the USA putting countervailing duties on some products related to solar energy and metal products, which were ruled as illegitimate by the WTO.
Similar to the cases against Airbus in Europe and Boeing in the USA, this judgment gives WTO permission to new tariff impositions. If even more tariffs are levied by Beijing against American imports, it would not bode well for an amenable trade deal to be worked out soon.
However, news on a potential trade deal continues to have positive notes when coming from the administration. Members of the Trump administration in recent days have expressed that they’ve had positive talks with Beijing that could lead to further breakthroughs, but for now, all tariffs remain in place. In December an additional round is scheduled to go into effect, and so importers from China need to be prepared for those as soon as possible.
On the other side of the world, tariffs on products originating in the European Union are pushing ahead. They went into effect for all listed products on October 18th. While the dispute is about aircraft subsidies, the tariffs are primarily on European luxury products and agricultural goods that are designed to hit the economies of the EU nations hardest. With the EU looking to impose counter-tariffs based on their own WTO case, these tariffs look to be in for the long haul. Any firm affected by these new tariffs should plan to mitigate them however they can.
All of these new tariffs are still under section 301 of the Tariff Act of 1974, meaning they remain eligible for drawback. Now represents a perfect opportunity for any firm to get its drawback program started to begin getting these refunds right away. If you’d like to discuss recent tariff news or how a drawback program would work for you, please Contact Us.
