The U.S. government has issued another amendment in the effective date for the increase in the tariff for Trump’s Section 301 Tariff List#3. There are now three categories of possible entries.

Category#1: Product exported to the United States BEFORE May 10, 2019 AND entered into the United States BEFORE June 1, 2019

Products in this category will receive the current Section 301 tariff of 10%. There are two tricky parts to this category:

• Making sure the entry is released by June 1, 2019. Please be cognizant that the entry date is dependent on both the day that Customs releases the shipment AND the date a shipment arrives in the United States. Even if an entry is filed and released from Customs before June 1, 2019, if the vessel does not arrive until June 1, 2019 or after, the release date will be updated to vessel arrival date. In such a case, the shipment will not receive the 10% tariff under Category#2 and instead will end up with a 25% rate mentioned under Category #2. The sames is true if Customs holds a shipment for inspection and doesn’t release it until June 1, 2019 or after.
• Many shipments that are exported from China before May 10, 2019 to the United States via ocean freight coming to the U.S. West Coast should arrive before June 1, 2019. However there are slow steaming vessels that have longer transit times that may not arrive before June 1, 2019. This is particularly true for second call U.S. West Coast ports such as Oakland, Seattle/Tacoma. For shipments travelling all-water to the U.S. East Coast that just departed before May 10, 2019, there is a significantly high chance that the shipment will not arrive before June 1, 2019. All these shipments arriving on or after June 1, 2019 fall into the third category.

Category#2: Product exported to the United States BEFORE May 10, 2019 AND entered into the United States on or after June 1, 2019
Products in this category will face the increased Section 301 tariff of 25%. This is regardless of whether or not the shipment was exported from China to the United States before May 10, 2019.

Category#3: Goods exported to the United States on or after May 10, 2019 
Products in this category will face the increase of Section 301 tariff from 10% to 25%.