The United States Trade Representative (USTR) has granted certain Section 301 tariff exclusions on some seafood items, giving the products another three months to avoid a higher 25 percent tariff rate.
The Section 301 tariffs stem from the first term of U.S. President Donald Trump, who first hit Chinese products with a 10 percent tariff in 2018. That move started Trump’s first trade war with China, which resulted in 25 percent tariffs being placed on a wide array of goods from China related to the Section 301 Investigation of China’s Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden then kept many of the policies regarding the Section 301 investigation – including many of the tariff exclusions that were established on a range of items. Those exclusions have undergone regular extensions, with the most recent extension in May 2024 granting reprieves to an array of seafood products for one year. Another extension, in September, touched on certain solar manufacturing equipment.
On 31 May – the final date that all of those tariff extensions would have applied – the USTR announced it plans to ...
