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News Release 20-039
Inv. No(s). 332-576
Contact: Peg O'Laughlin, 202-205-1819
The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) today released the results of its investigation to identify imported products related to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and provide trade-related information for them, including their 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) numbers and the source countries and applicable rates of duty of those HTS numbers.
The investigation, COVID-19 Related Goods: U.S. Imports and Tariffs, was requested by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance in a letter received on April 7, 2020.
In requesting the investigation, the lawmakers asked the USITC to “provide a report to the Committees and the (U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)) that identifies imported goods related to the response to COVID-19, their source countries, tariff classifications, and applicable rates of duty so as to assist the Committees and USTR in proposing or taking appropriate and responsive actions.”
In response, the USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, produced a database that provides the following information for each product it identified:
- the 10-digit HTS number the article is imported under;
- its description;
- general duty rate;
- any special or additional rates of duty imposed on the article, and the dates on which the rates were imposed, and the authorities under which they were imposed;
- whether any such duties have been suspended and, if so, the date of suspension as well how the long suspension is scheduled to last;
- the total range of duty rates imposed on such articles, including any special or additional rate of duty; and
- the major countries of origin for each HTS number identified, and the import value of that HTS number from each country for the years 2017-2019.
As requested, the USITC’s database allows the information to be sorted by the fields listed above. It also includes a “plain English” description or examples of products that fall within the identified HTS numbers and citations to sources consulted in identifying the products.
COVID-19 Related Goods: U.S. Imports and Tariffs (Investigation No. 332-576, USITC publication 5047, April 2020) is available on the USITC's Internet site at https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub5047.xlsx.
At the Committee’s request, the USITC will provide any updated data runs on its website through June 30, 2020.
Anyone interested in tracking updates to the database can sign up for automatic email notifications when changes are made through the USITC’s self-subscribe email notification system. Users can create or update an existing account and select “COVID-19 Related Goods: U.S. Imports and Tariffs Updates” to subscribe to the updates.
USITC general factfinding investigations, such as this one, cover matters related to tariffs or trade and are generally conducted at the request of the U.S. Trade Representative, the House Committee on Ways and Means, or the Senate Committee on Finance. The resulting report conveys the Commission’s objective findings and independent analyses on the subjects investigated. The Commission makes no recommendations on policy or other matters in its general factfinding reports. Upon completion of each investigation, the USITC submits its findings and analyses to the requester. General factfinding investigation reports are subsequently released to the public, unless they are classified by the requester for national security reasons.