On August 29, 2019, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced in a pre-publication Federal Register Notice (FRN) an increase in additional duty on the first three lists of Section 301 trade remedies on products of Chinese origin.

According to the FRN, duty rates will increase from 25% to 30% on products already subject to the Section 301 tariff actions taken in June, August, and September of 2018. The increase will not affect exclusions granted during the exclusion process.

In addition, the USTR invited members of the public to submit comments on the proposed modification. Public comments on the proposed action should be submitted through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov under docket number USTR-2019-0015 and must be submitted by September 20, 2019.

The increase in duty will become effective on October 1, 2019. For additional questions, the FRN directs concerned parties to contact Associate General Counsel Arthur Tsao, Assistant General Counsel Megan Grimball, or Director of Industrial Goods Justin Hoffmann at (202) 395-5725.

The pre-publication FRN may be found here:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-18946.pdf