On May 10, 2017, CBP issued CSMS #17-000270 FTA Origination Analysis and Certification when no Tariff Change Rule (TCR). We quote the CSMS below:
Manufacturers, exporters and importers are advised that a very limited number of tariff items in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) do not have corresponding free trade agreement (FTA) tariff change rules (TCRs) (also known as “product specific rules of origin” or by the acronym “PSRs”) because they were negotiated using a Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) that was subsequently modified in 2007, 2012, or 2017, and the corresponding TCRs have not been implemented.
The following table shows the up-to-date/out-of-date status of the TCRs for each FTA:
| Free Trade
Agreement |
TCRs Updated to
2007 HTSUS |
TCRs Updated to
2012 HTSUS |
TCRs Updated
2017 HTSUS |
|
| 1 | Australia FTA | Yes | No | No |
| 2 | Bahrain FTA | Yes | No | No |
| 3 | CAFTA-DR | No | No | No |
| 4 | Chile FTA | Yes | Yes | No |
| 5 | Colombia TPA | No | No | No |
| 6 | Israel FTA (QIZs) | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 7 | Jordan FTA | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 8 | Korea FTA | Yes | Yes | No |
| 9 | Morocco FTA | No | No | No |
| 10 | NAFTA | Yes | No | No |
| 11 | Oman FTA | No | No | No |
| 12 | Panama TPA | No | No | No |
| 13 | Peru TPA | No | No | No |
| 14 | Singapore FTA | Yes | No | No |
Until revised TCRs are implemented, manufacturers/exporters/importers of affected goods seeking to perform a tariff-shift origination analysis should classify the good and its materials using the most recent HTSUS in which the tariff item has a corresponding TCR and perform the origination analysis using that year’s HTSUS.
Until revised TCRs are implemented, the certificate of origin, ideally, should indicate both the current HTSUS number and the previously corresponding HTSUS number used to perform the origination analysis in parenthesis and with wording to that effect.
For example, beneath the description of the good in block 5 of the CO, the statement “(Origination analysis performed using HTSUS xxxx.xx.xxxx (20XX) since no TCR for item number yyyy.yy.yyyy in 2017 HTSUS.)” [Replace placeholders with the appropriate numbers/dates]. The CO could look something like this:
This issue was previously addressed with respect to the 2007 and 2012 HTSUS in CSMS #13-000368.
See H026740 and H074136 for rulings employing a previous year’s HTSUS to perform the TCR analysis.
Current and previous iterations of the HTSUS, with their corresponding TCRs, are available from the USITC website at https://hts.usitc.gov/view/list
Certificates of Origin following these instructions will remain valid even after the corresponding TCRs have been updated.
Questions with respect to these instructions should be directed to the Trade Agreements Branch at fta@dhs.gov.
