On June 19, 2017, the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), published in the Federal Register a notice containing an updated list of quantity-based trigger levels for products which may be subject to additional import duties under the safeguard provisions of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. This notice also includes the relevant period applicable for the trigger levels on each of the listed products. Article 5 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture provides that additional import duties may be imposed on imports of products subject to tariffication as a result of the Uruguay Round, if certain conditions are met. The agreement permits additional duties to be charged if the price of an individual shipment of imported products falls below the average price for similar goods imported during the years 1986–88 by a specified percentage. It also permits additional duties to be imposed if the volume of imports of an article exceeds the average of the most recent 3 years for which data are available by 5, 10, or 25 percent, depending on the article. These additional duties may not be imposed on quantities for which minimum or current access commitments were made during the Uruguay Round negotiations, and only one type of safeguard, price or quantity, may be applied at any given time to an article. See the Federal Register notice for trigger levels.
