The annual review of the GSP program has led to changes in GSP eligibility for several products handled by AFI members. These changes are effective with respect to products entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption on or after July 1.
Competitive-need limitations impose ceilings on GSP benefits for each product and country. A country will automatically lose its GSP eligibility for a product when the levels are exceeded unless the CNLs are waived. A beneficiary country loses GSP eligibility for a product if, during the previous calendar year, U.S. imports of a GSP article from that country account for 50 percent or more of the value of total U.S. imports of that product or exceed a certain dollar value. The following products are removed from GSP eligibility because they exceeded the CNL:
HTS -- Country -- Product
2008.99.80 -- Brazil -- Fruit pulp
The following products are no longer GSP-eligible because they are subject to the new “super-competitiveness” thresholds established in a law enacted last year. The law provides that the president should revoke any CNL waiver that has been in effect for five years or more if U.S. imports of a GSP-eligible product from a specific country in the previous calendar year either exceeded 150 percent of the CNL or exceeded 75 percent of all U.S. imports of that product.
0802.90.94 -- Cote d’Ivoire -- Kola nuts
The proclamation redesignates the following products as eligible for GSP benefits because they no longer exceed the CNLs:
0708.20.10 -- Peru -- Lima beans
0712.90.30 -- Peru -- Dried potatoes
0714.20.10 -- Columbia -- Frozen sweet potatoes
2004.10.40 -- Peru -- Yellow potatoes
2008.19.25 -- Peru -- Pecans
GSP eligibility for a wide range of products from a number of countries (see annexes II and III at http://www.ustr.gov/assets/Trade_Development/Preference_Programs/GSP/GSP_Results_of_the_2006_Annual_Review/asset_upload_file58_12946.pdf) has been continued after the president determined to either disregard or waive the CNLs for these goods.
The above actions were taken in the context of the USTR’s 2006 annual GSP review. A separate review, under which the USTR is considering the withdrawal of GSP eligibility for more than a dozen countries and nearly 100 products, is still underway. The countries that could face removal from GSP as a result of this review are Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela. It is not clear at this time when the results of this review may be available.
The president also redesignated Mauritania as an eligible sub-Saharan African country and a beneficiary sub-Saharan African country under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, effective with respect to articles entered, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after July 1. Mauritania was also redesignated as a lesser-developed AGOA beneficiary.
