The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced this week that the current Section 301 tariff of 15 percent on List 4A Chinese products will be reduced to 7.5 percent as of 12:01 a.m. on February 14, 2020. This reduction, which will be formally published in an upcoming Federal Register notice, covers all HTS subheadings in Annex A of the August 20, 2019 Federal Register notice first implementing these duties. [UPDATE: see the Federal Register notice published on January 22, 2020.)
This reduction is the result of the United States and China signing their “phase one” trade agreement on January 15, 2020. With the agreement scheduled to enter into force on February 14, 2020, President Donald Trump determined that the higher duty rate is no longer appropriate.