On August 10, 2020, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC)  released its final report on miscellaneous tariff bill petitions it received under the 2016 American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act (AMCA).

As required by the AMCA, the USITC submitted the report to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance for their use in developing a miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB) for Congressional consideration. The American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act: 2020 Final Report (USITC Publication No. 5097) (Final Report) provides recommendations on 3,442 petitions and categorizes each petition as either: (1) petitions that meet the requirements of the AMCA with or without modification (Category I, II, III, or IV petitions), (2) petitions that do not contain the information required by the AMCA or for which the USITC determined that the petitioner was not a likely beneficiary (Category V petitions), or (3) petitions that the USITC does not recommend for inclusion in a MTB (Category VI petitions). The largest product categories were chemicals, accounting for 1,839 petitions; machinery and equipment, accounting for 715 petitions; and textiles, apparel and footwear, accounting for 581 petitions. Of the 3,442 petitions, the USITC assigned 2,695 to Categories I through IV, 42 to Category V and 705 to Category VI.

In addition to finalizing the list of products, the USITC made certain determinations for each petition in this Final Report, including comments on: (1) whether the duty suspension or reduction can likely be administered by Custom and Border Protection (CBP); (2) whether the estimated revenue lost does not exceed $500,000 in a calendar year; and (3) whether the duty suspension or reduction is available to any person importing the article. Any approval of possible tariff relief and changes to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) must now be considered and approved by Congress; however, it is unclear when either the Senate or House of Representatives will undertake consideration of the USITC report.  Once approved, any duty suspension or reduction would be for a period of three years.

For additional background on this MTB process, see Updates of October 1, 2019, and January 10, 2020.