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Law360 (March 23, 2020, 3:50 PM EDT) -- In just two days, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has received more than 330 comments on its proposal to lift certain tariffs on Chinese imports as part of the government's response to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
The USTR opened its new COVID-19 tariff exclusion process late Friday and saw 339 public comments filed over the weekend to the docket on Regulations.gov. The comments themselves have not been published yet, but the public calls for tariff relief from U.S. importers have been mounting for weeks.
The Trump administration has had an exclusion process in place ever since it began imposing tariffs on China in 2018, and has already exempted certain safety gear like disposable masks, gloves and shoe coverings from the levies. But U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has now opened a separate process specifically related to items aimed to combat the rapid spread of the virus.
In unveiling the new process, Lighthizer stressed that the China tariffs were crafted with public health in mind from the start, excluding key items like ventilators and oxygen masks.
But calls for broad tariff relief have persisted nevertheless, and the tariff opposition group Americans for Free Trade bashed the USTR's new process as a time-consuming half measure over the weekend.
"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 Saturday.
As of Monday, the novel coronavirus, which originated in the Hubei province of China at the end of 2019, has infected 33,404 Americans and resulted in 400 U.S. deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While the USTR contemplates tariff cuts on equipment that will aid U.S. medical personnel in containing the virus and treating those who have it, business groups like AFT, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers have pressed for more broad-based tariff relief that will soften the economic blow of the outbreak.
Apart from its coronavirus response, the USTR has continued to carve out other products from its China tariffs. On Friday, it announced cuts on 177 new products, including cabinets, LED lamps, tires, bird feeders and various seeds.
Those goods had been subject to a 25% duty that will now be lifted retroactively from September 2018, when the levy went in place, through Aug. 7 of this year.
In a letter published Friday, the USTR also revealed it would soon be cutting a 7.5% duty that had been applied to Apple Inc.'s Apple Watch.
--Editing by Haylee Pearl.
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