On August 11, 2020, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published a notification requiring that all goods produced in Hong Kong and entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption into the United States after September 25, 2020, must — under Section 304 of the Tariff Act of 19301 — be marked as a product of China. CBP's shift in policy is an outgrowth of President Trump's July 14, 2020, Executive Order on Hong Kong Normalization, which suspended Hong Kong's special trade status under section 201(a) of the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992.2

Significantly, CBP's notification does not reference whether goods produced in Hong Kong will become subject to Section 301 tariffs or antidumping/countervailing duties that are currently imposed by the United States on a broad spectrum of Chinese-origin goods. Although CBP's website still includes guidance that such tariffs do not apply to goods manufactured in Hong Kong, we anticipate additional guidance on this point from CBP or the USTR in the near future.

We will continue to monitor these, and related, developments closely and publish additional updates, as appropriate.

Footnotes

1   Section 304 of the Tariff Act of 1930 as amended (19 U.S.C. 1304), provides that, unless excepted, every article of foreign origin (or its container) imported into the United States shall be marked in a conspicuous place as legibly, indelibly, and permanently as the nature of the article (or its container) will permit, in such a manner as to indicate to the ultimate purchaser in the United States the English name of the country of origin of the article. Failure to mark an article in accordance with the requirements of 19 U.S.C. 1304 shall result in the levy of a duty of ten percent ad valorem. Part 134 of title 19 of the Code of Federal Regulations (19 CFR part 134), implements the country of origin marking requirements and exceptions of 19 U.S.C. 1304.



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Stefan H. Reisinger
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