On August 10, 2020, the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) delivered its final report on miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB) petitions it received in December 2019 under the 2016 American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act (AMCA). Petitions that have been recommended by the USITC will receive a temporary reduction or suspension on import duties once the President signs the bill. As required by AMCA, the final report was sent to the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance. The preliminary report was sent to Congress on June 9, 2020 and the USITC subsequently accepted comments on Category VI petitions not recommended for inclusion in the tariff bill.
In its final report, the USITC categorized all 3,442 petitions filed based on whether the petition meets the requirements of the act. For a petition to be recommended by the USITC, it must be shown that there is no domestic production of the article, the duty suspension or reduction is available to any person importing the article, the petition is administrable by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the estimated revenue loss to the United States is under $500,000 each calendar year. Based on these requirements the petitions have been sorted into six categories.
Category I: “Petitions that the Commission finds meet the requirements of the Act without modification.”
Category II: “Petitions for which the Commission recommends technical corrections in order to meet the requirements of the Act.”
Category III: “Petitions for which the Commission recommends a modification to the amount of the requested duty suspension or reduction in order to comply with the requirements of the Act.”
Category IV: “Petitions for which the Commission recommends a modification to the scope of the articles covered by the petitions to address objections from domestic producers.”
Category V(aa): “Petitions that the Commission finds do not contain the information required under the Act.”
Category V(bb): “Petitions for which the Commission has determined that the petitioner is not a likely beneficiary.”
Category VI: “Petitions that the Commission does not otherwise recommend for inclusion in a miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB)”.
The following chart examines the number of petitions in each category and compares the breakdown of categories in the preliminary report against the final report.
| Preliminary Report | Final Report | |
| Category I | 874 | 878 |
| Category II | 1,229 | 1,278 |
| Category III | 526 | 534 |
| Category IV | 3 | 5 |
| Category V (aa) | 16 | 17 |
| Category V (bb) | 26 | 25 |
| Category VI | 805 | 705 |
| Withdrawn Petitions | 607 | 644 |
| Total | 4,086 | 4,086 |
Upon the delivery of this report to Congress, the USITC has now completed the second and final miscellaneous tariff bill petition cycles as mandated by the AMCA. There is no set timeline for when Congress will send the bill to the President for his final signature.