Big tariff news! The United States announced a new list of

In July, there were reports in the seller circle that the United States had begun to impose an additional 25% tariff on China. We clarified this with the sellers in the group. It was not an additional tariff, but a batch of tariff-exempt products expired on July 9, and the US chose not to extend the exemption, so the original 25% tariff was restored. In fact, only 98 products were affected this time.

At that time, many sellers were discussing whether the Sino-US relations would deteriorate to the point where tariffs were imposed on each other in May last year. And the Sino-US frictions have indeed continued recently, and it is hard not to worry about the impact of these frictions on the cross-border industry.

And there has been good news regarding tariffs in the past two days - the US has extended the exemption period for some products subject to additional tariffs!

In its latest announcement, USTR said it would again extend the tariff exemption period for some Chinese products, including smart watches, wearable devices and medical masks.

The exemption list includes two parts. One is the products in the first phase of the China-US trade agreement signed in January this year, where the tariff rate will be reduced from 15% to 7.5%, including many Bluetooth headsets and other data transmission devices, as well as some pianos, monitors and other equipment whose exemption period has also been extended.

The other part of the exemption includes medical equipment such as masks, ventilators, stethoscope covers and cotton gauze. These products were exempted from tariffs only after the epidemic spread in the United States. The purpose of this extension is obviously because of the second outbreak of the epidemic in the United States, and the demand for these primary medical products is too great. (For a detailed exemption list, please contact me privately at the end of the article)

Unlike all previous exemptions, this one only lasts a few months, until December 31 of this year. The previous exemptions were all for a year, so it is unusual to extend the period by such a short time this time . I think it may have more to do with Trump's election.

As we all know, the epidemic in the United States has now broken out again, and the number of confirmed cases and deaths is soaring day by day. Among the products postponed this time, a large part of them are medical products, which are really used for emergency treatment in the current situation in the United States. Imposing tariffs on these products will undoubtedly have a significant impact on Trump's approval rating.

The U.S. will hold its official general election in November. Because he has offended too many people, Trump's retirement life will definitely be unstable if he fails to be re-elected. Whether Trump can be re-elected this time will have far-reaching implications for him, so it is impossible for Trump to do anything that is detrimental to votes during the period before the election.

But Trump has been putting pressure on us recently, suppressing Chinese apps, and even threatening to restart the tariff war. Out of this mentality of not daring to fight, he launched a tariff exemption list that will only last for three months. The purpose is that after the election, if Trump can be re-elected, he can continue to use tariff exemptions as a bargaining chip to conduct the second phase of trade negotiations with us.

Therefore, in the short term, at least before the US election in November, the tariff issue will not change much. The first phase agreement we reached in January is still valid, and most cross-border sellers do not have to increase costs due to tariffs.

However, there will be several exemption lists that will expire in succession, and these exempted products may not be as lucky as the epidemic prevention materials this time and be extended. The more likely scenario is that like the list in July, the exemption of tariffs will be stopped and restored to 15%/25%.