Congress Directs USTR To Establish List 3 Exclusion Process

On February 19, 2019, President Trump signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019, the funding bill that avoided another government shutdown. Importantly, within that bill, Congress directed the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to implement an exclusion process for Section 301 List 3 products - of which many are of concern to the RV industry.

Congress has ordered USTR to initiate this exclusion process no later than 30 days from enactment, or no later than March 17, 2019. Additionally, Congress told USTR to follow the same exclusion processes established for Lists 1 and 2. USTR must consult with and issue a report to the Committees on Appropriations, the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance regarding the nature and timing of the exclusion process by March 17.

Worth noting is that the directive was issued in the Joint Explanatory Statement (JES) accompanying the bill, which is an explanatory document and therefore not legally binding. The RV Industry Association called for the establishment of an exclusion process last fall.

Read the full text here.

On Sunday, February 24, President Trump announced that he would delay the scheduled increase from 10 percent to 25 percent in Section 301 tariffs on List 3, citing substantial progress in an ongoing round of U.S.-China trade talks.

For more information, contact Samantha Rocci at srocci@rvia.org.