The House on Tuesday passed the Senate-amended version of the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, sending the legislation to President Donald Trump for signature.
Broadly speaking, the legislation would amend the Harmonized Tariff Schedule to provide duty suspensions and reductions for specified chemicals and other items through Dec. 31, 2020.
The House passed the legislation via suspension of the rules on Tuesday. The Senate passed the legislation by unanimous consent on July 26.
After an initial version of the legislation passed the House in January, the Senate version removed language that would have eliminated or reduced tariffs on electric commercial vehicles, cabs and bodies for electric vehicles, collapsible insulated food and beverage bags, rotary hand-cutting tools, full tang knives, propagaryl butycarbamate and esfenvalerate.
The final bill passed Tuesday also expands descriptions of certain types of footwear included in the January-passed legislation to distinguish between similar products that would not be covered by tariff reductions.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee ranking member Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., on the House floor on Tuesday announced his support for the bill, but noted that it seems to contradict major portions of the Trump administration’s trade strategy, which has been largely defined by new tariffs.
“While the administration has been imposing tariffs, our trading partners have been responding in kind by hitting our exports with retaliatory tariffs,” he said. “As we consider suspending some 1,600 tariffs on imports from China and other countries, I haven’t heard that any of those countries are about to reciprocate and do us any similar favors.”