On July 26, 2018, the Senate unanimously passed the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Act of 2018 (MTB), a bill that would cut or eliminate tariffs on articles such as chemicals, footwear, toasters, and roughly 1,660 other items made outside the United States. Roughly half of those items are produced in China. The bill was passed without debate. The last MTB passed by Congress expired on December 31, 2012.

President Trump had announced a series of punitive tariffs on Chinese imports and China has retaliated with its own duties on imports from the United States. The White House has not yet announced a position on the MTB bill, which has now passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives unanimously. There are minor differences that need to be resolved before the legislation can be sent to the President to sign into law.

Associations have been urging Congress to pass MTB in order to eliminate what they claim are unfair, out-of-date and/or anticompetitive taxes. It is estimated that the 2018 MTB Act would eliminate import tariffs of more than $1.1 billion over the next three years and boost U.S. manufacturing output by more than $3.1 billion. Supporters of the bill have stated that it would boost the economy by getting rid of tariffs set up to protect industries that no longer exist in the United States.

 

 

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Photo of Frances P. Hadfield Frances P. Hadfield

Frances P. Hadfield is a counsel in Crowell & Moring’s International Trade Group in the firm’s New York office. Her practice focuses on forced labor and withhold release orders (WRO), import regulatory compliance, and customs litigation. She regularly advises corporations on matters involving…

Frances P. Hadfield is a counsel in Crowell & Moring’s International Trade Group in the firm’s New York office. Her practice focuses on forced labor and withhold release orders (WRO), import regulatory compliance, and customs litigation. She regularly advises corporations on matters involving customs compliance, audits, customs enforcement, as well as import penalties.

Frances represents clients before the U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as well as in proceedings at the administrative level. She advises corporations on both substantive federal and state regulatory issues that involve U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration, and U.S. Fish & Wildlife in matters pertaining to product admissibility, audits, classification, import restrictions, investigations, marking, licenses, origin, penalties, and tariff preference programs.

Photo of John Brew John Brew

John Brew is the co-chair of Crowell & Moring’s International Trade Group and a partner in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. He has extensive experience in import and export trade regulation, and he regularly advises corporations, trade associations, foreign governments, and non-governmental organizations…

John Brew is the co-chair of Crowell & Moring’s International Trade Group and a partner in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. He has extensive experience in import and export trade regulation, and he regularly advises corporations, trade associations, foreign governments, and non-governmental organizations on matters involving customs administration, enforcement, compliance, litigation, legislation and policy.

John represents clients in proceedings at the administrative and judicial levels, as well as before Congress and the international bureaucracies that handle customs and trade matters. He advises clients on all substantive import regulatory issues handled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, such as classification, valuation, origin, marking, tariff preference programs, other agency regulations, admissibility, import restrictions, quotas, drawback, audits, prior disclosures, penalties, investigations, Importer Self Assessment and Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism programs, importations under bond, the Jones Act, vessel repairs, and foreign trade zone matters.