So far since the trade war, vacuum leaders in China have run to and from East Asia several times and some of them were rumored to set up factories there. Now America escalates the trade war again.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced on June 19, 2019 an exclusion process for product exclusions from the tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese products (“List 3”). On August 7, USTR published their first batch of List 3 exclusions.
Vacuums are latest listed as exclusions on November 26.
The detailed descriptions:
(13) Vacuum cleaner, bagless, upright, capable of operating in wet mode or dry mode, each with self-contained electric motor of a power not exceeding 1,500W and having a tank capacity not over 4 liters
(14) Vacuum cleaner, bagless, upright, each with self-contained electric motor of a power not exceeding 1,500W and having a dust receptable capacity not exceeding 1 liter
It seems merely bagless, upright vacuums are listed as exclusions, which are most popular in America. How cunning Trump is!
Barrel type vacuum, Dyson style handheld vacuum of lithium battery, Canister, carpet cleaner, vehicle mounted vacuum are not listed.
List 3 exclusions are retroactive, which means that tariffs added to those not in the list will be refunded as of September 24, 2018. The refunding process has not been specified.
Only Shark, Bissell, TTI, top three in North America, saw its products in the list, as other suppliers with cross-border operations have no export of such items.
Will other categories of vacuums be covered? It is early to say. To get more inside story, why not transfer RMB 50,000 via Alipay for me to ask Trump?
If so, their OEM makers seem caught in another dilemma.
To go or not to go?
Please refer to the time line of US tariffs on additional USD 200 billion of China imports:
- Inclusions in the USD 200 billion list of tariffs are subject to a 10 percent duty as of 24 September, to rise to 25 percent in May 10, 2019.
- On August 7, USTR announced exclusion processfor product exclusions from the tariffs on USD 200 billion of Chinese products. There are ten products as the first batch of exclusions.
- On September 17, the USTR released 38 items as the second batch of List 3 exclusions targeting USD 34 billion, USD 16 billion and USD 200 billion of US goods.
- On October 23, the USTR announced 83 items as the third batch of the exclusions.
- On November 7, the USTR announced 36 items as the fourth batch of the exclusions.
- On November 26, the USTR announced 32 items as the fifth batch of the exclusions.
Up to November 26, 2019, 199 items have been in exclusions, of which, two are completely excluded by HS code and the remaining partially excluded.
