MEMO TO CLIENTS ISSUE 20-013 – December 28, 2020

GSP and MTB Will Not be Extended on January 1 The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and the Miscellaneous Trade Bill (MTB) were not included in the Omnibus bill and will not be extended on January 1, 2021. GSP will mostly be renewed as it has been when it has expired several times in the past. Duties will have to be paid, but we expect that when it is renewed it will be retroactive to January 1, 2021. All previous GSP renewals have been made retroactive to the expiration date. MTB will not be renewed in a similar manner. Each MTB that passes has a hard expiration date. A new MTB must be passed each time. The new MTB was ready to be included but did not make it to the final bill. It still needs to be attached as a new bill to be passed with the new list that will include mot of what has been active this year. We will watch its progress closely.

New China (301) Exclusions for January 1 We had all expected that almost all China 301 exclusions were to expire on December 31 except for only a few from List 1. At the last minute on Wednesday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced some special new exclusions dealing with COVID-19. These include PEE’s, medical equipment and devices and other medical articles deemed necessary to help stop the spread of Covid-19 articles. The new lists include articles for various expiring exclusions and some new ones that were added. The new exclusions under new 9903 HTSUS numbers that will be effective on January 1, 2021. The old exclusions will still expire on December 31. The new exclusions will be effective from January 1 through March 31, 2021. The USTR’s announcement, including the annexes with the list of these HTS numbers of the new exclusions, can be found by clicking here.