On October 9, 2019, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) published a Federal Register notice informing that additional duties on products from certain member States of the EU will take effect starting at 12:01 a.m. on October 18, 2019. This action comes after the USTR determined that the EU and certain member states failed to implement World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Body recommendations to curb subsidy programs for the EU’s large civil aircraft industry. The United States received permission from the WTO to levy tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of European products following a decision from a case involving subsidies to European aircraft manufacturer Airbus that dates back to 2005.

The Federal Register notice outlines the changes to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) of the United States to account for the additional tariffs. To accomplish this, Subchapter III of chapter 99 of the HTS will be modified by inserting new codes that group together products from certain countries. For example, subheading 9903.89.49 groups product codes for single-malt Irish Whisky and sweaters from the United Kingdom and applies a 25% duty. In total there are 15 groupings, all with their own list of affected countries and all but one containing a 25% duty rate. The Crowell & Moring team has prepared a simplified table below with several of the prominent products for each subheading, but for the full list of countries and HTS codes please see the link to the unofficial excel version or the link to the official notice.