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Law360 (March 21, 2020, 12:49 PM EDT) -- The Trump administration announced late Friday that it may introduce a new round of tariff breaks for Chinese imports to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, marking the first time the U.S. has publicly floated tariff relief as part of its policy response to the outbreak.
In a brief statement, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said it is fielding public comments for new tariff exclusions "in an effort to keep current on developments in our national fight against the coronavirus pandemic," and added that it has always "prioritized health considerations" in carrying out its China tariff push.
President Donald Trump imposed duties as high as 25% on some $360 billion worth of Chinese imports over the course of two years in a protracted trade dispute over Beijing's intellectual property and technology transfer policies. As the tariffs took effect, the administration opened a process for importers to exclude certain products from the levies.
That exclusion process gives tariff breaks to goods that are not sufficiently available from U.S. suppliers, and has already resulted in a handful of exclusions for Chinese masks, gloves, shoe coverings and other protective medical equipment.
But USTR announced Friday that it is now opening a separate process for tariff exclusions prompted specifically by the virus, saying that the initial exclusion proceedings will continue uninterrupted.
Trump himself pushed back against the idea of broad-based tariff relief as part of the COVID-19 outbreak as recently as Wednesday. The president dismissed a call for tariff cuts from importers as actually originating from China, prompting even more blowback from the U.S. business community.
USTR said its new exclusion process will be limited only to products that are "relevant to the medical response." But importers have pushed the administration to go bigger, removing tariffs even on nonmedical consumer goods in an effort to blunt the outbreak's intensifying economic crunch.
Americans for Free Trade, the importer group that clashed with Trump earlier in the week, criticized USTR for taking a piecemeal approach to tariff relief, saying that the nation's top priority should be "ensuring the health and safety" of those suffering from the virus and the medical personnel treating them.
"Companies should not be forced to go through another comment period filing exclusion requests, so that they can continue to focus their efforts on providing these essential products during this crucial time," AFT spokesman Jonathan Gold said in a statement.
The agency underscored its efforts to tailor the China tariffs to public health concerns from the start, noting that products like ventilators, oxygen masks, and nubilators were never subject to levies.
"In fact, U.S. imports in 2019 of all critical medical and pharmaceutical products were up over 20 percent since 2017, before Section 301 tariffs were imposed," the agency said.
The Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment after business hours on Saturday.
--Editing by Katherine Rautenberg.
Update: This story has been updated with comment from Americans for Free Trade.
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