Importers have been anxiously waiting for the Secretary of Commerce to officially announce in the Federal Register a date that the section 232 tariff will be assessed for non-chapter 73/76 derivative articles. Tonight, CBP published two CSMS messages that indicated that the steel and aluminum tariffs would be assessed on the non-chapter 73/76 derivative articles starting on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
It was just last Friday, March 7, 2025 that CBP has provided guidance on what information to provide to CBP for calculating the steel and aluminum tariff. The messages last Friday indicated the following:
Effective with respect to steel articles and derivative steel articles entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after a date to be certified in the Federal Register by the Secretary of Commerce, the following HTS classification and 25 percent duty rate applies to the value of the steel content:
Effective with respect to aluminum articles and derivative aluminum articles entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after a date to be certified in the Federal Register by the Secretary of Commerce, the following HTS classification and 25 percent duty rate applies:
CBP's updated CSMS messages that were sent tonight have removed the highlighted portion and substituted it with the phrase "on or after 12:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on March 12, 2025." This means that as of midnight tonight, the section 232 steel and aluminum tariff will be assessed on both the chapter 73 and 76 items as well as the non-chapter 73 and 76 derivative items.
We also found a pre-publication from the Secretary of Commerce certifying the "Systems for Processing and Collecting Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum Articles Pursuant to the President’s February 10, 2025 Proclamations." The document will be officially published in the Federal Register on March 14, 2025. This message was buried on the Federal Register website under their pre-publication page.
We believe that the entire importing community will be in shock as they closely review this message from CBP. Most importers, suppliers, customs brokers are not ready to provide the information that CBP is requesting in order to calculate and pay the section 232 tariff. We expect a lot of scrambling around by importers in the coming days to try to collect the required information. Many entries that have already been filed may need to be updated.
As a reminder of what information CBP wants to be reported for the non-chapter 73/76 derivative items, please review my previous newsletter published on March 8, 2025.
