Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974 remains the central legal instrument shaping US–China trade flows. What began as a punitive tariff schedule under one administration has, through six years of layered amendments, exclusions, re-impositions, and category-by-category recalibrations, become one of the most consequential — and least intuitively documented — features of global trade.
Why this matters for cargo flows. Tariff schedules don’t just affect duty. They affect routing decisions, country-of-origin claims, IOR/EOR structuring, and ultimately the airfreight-versus-ocean choice. A 20-point shift in landed cost can move a category from sea to air, or trigger a country-of-origin relocation that adds an entire new lane to the network. This tracker follows the policy at the level of detail that matters for that kind of operational decision.
What this tracker covers
- The active tariff schedule — HTS codes under List 1 / 2 / 3 / 4A, current rates, recent moves
- Exclusion list activity — new exclusions granted, renewals, expirations
- Section 122 vs Section 301 — how the operative legal basis has evolved, and what each means for the duration and reversibility of measures
- Country-of-origin movement — manufacturers relocating to Vietnam, Mexico, India, Malaysia; the operational consequences for forwarders
- Related policy levers — IEEPA actions, anti-circumvention investigations, AD/CVD overlaps, transhipment scrutiny
What’s on the radar
- Periodic 4-year review cycles and the political calendar around them
- Renewable energy and EV battery categories — perennially contested
- Semiconductor and equipment carve-outs
- The intersection with US Section 232 (national security) tariffs on steel and aluminium
Latest signal
This is a placeholder entry. The first full briefing will be published shortly.
If you work on tariff strategy, customs operations, or transpacific airfreight planning and want to compare notes, please reach out via the About page.