ITC Issues Revised HTS for Panama TPA; Effective Oct. 31
The International Trade Commission posted Revision 1 to Supplement 1 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule to implement the U.S.-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement, and correct and modify other tariff provisions. The new HTS is effective Oct. 31. The proclamation and annexes have not been published yet, so effective dates for many of the revisions are unknown.
Revision 1 adds General Note 35 for the U.S.-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement. The symbol “PA” was added to General Note 3(c)(i) for use in the “Special” column to denote the Panama TPA. ITC modified Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) provisions in General Note 4, Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA) provisions in General Note 7, and Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) in General Note 17 to remove Panama as a beneficiary.
The ITC also corrected HTS provisions in Chapters 2-4, 7-9, 10, 15-16, 18, 20-21, 38, 42, 44, and 46. Reasons for the corrections include correcting statistical suffixes, adding free trade agreements to the “Special” column, corrections to special rates for various FTAs, and spelling corrections. The effective dates for many of these revisions were listed as unknown in the change log, although the log indicates that they will be effective some time in October.
An entry in the “Special” column for HTS subheading 7601.10.30 was changed from “A” to “A*” to denote that items imported from Venezuela under this subheading are ineligible for GSP benefits (this country-product pair was listed in the previous HTS update’s ineligible GSP country pair table). This change is effective July 1.
Finally, ITC revised various tariff provisions in Chapters 98 and 99, including:
- Changes to tariff rate quota (TRQ) provisions for Peruvian and Colombian agricultural products (effective Feb. 1, 2009);
- Addition of Colombia to Chapter 99, Subchapter I, U.S. Note 3(e) on duty-free treatment of its goods under the U.S.-Colombia TPA (effective May 15, 2012);
- Changes to HTS subheadings 9903.40.05 and 9903.40.10 to reflect the expiration of the China tires safeguards (effective Sept. 26, 2012);
- Addition of Panama to the countries exempt from agricultural safeguards in Chapter 99, Subchapter IV, U.S. Note 1 (effective date unknown);
- Addition of Chapter 99, Subchapter XIX on modifications to the HTS by the Panama PTA (effective date unknown); and
- Correction of subheading 9920.04.30 on the TRQ for certain beverages from Korea.
(See ITT's Online Archives 12103121 for summary of the Presidential proclamation implementing these changes. The annexes detailing the changes are still unavailable, and the proclamation has not been published in the Federal Register.)