Section 301 — China tariffs
Section 301 tariffs are the additional duties the United States applies to many goods from China. Here is what they are and how they affect a landed-cost calculation.
What Section 301 is
Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 lets the Office of the US Trade Representative respond to foreign trade practices it considers unfair. Following an investigation into China's intellectual-property and technology-transfer practices, the United States began applying additional tariffs to a large share of goods from China in 2018 and 2019, organized into successive "lists." Those tariffs generally range from approximately 7.5% to 25%, depending on the product.
How it is applied
A Section 301 tariff is an additional ad valorem charge — a percentage of the entered (customs) value of the shipment. It is entered through an HTS Chapter 99 subheading alongside the product's ordinary HTS classification. Section 301 applies only to goods of Chinese origin in covered categories.
How it stacks
Section 301 is added on top of the ordinary (MFN) duty and any other applicable program. Portigo treats every duty component as a separate percentage of the same entered value and adds them together — components are not compounded on one another. So a Section 301 rate of 7.5% and an MFN rate of 16.5% combine to approximately 24% of entered value, before fees.
Coverage and rates change as USTR issues new notices. Portigo surfaces the rates in its data as of the page's "rates as of" timestamp; it does not give legal or compliance advice. Confirm specifics against the USITC HTS database or a licensed customs broker.