§2134 Two-year Residual Authority to Negotiate Duties

Summary

The President may make trade deals with other countries and then change, keep, or add import duties or duty-free/excise treatment as needed to carry out those deals. In any one-year period, those deals can only cover goods that together are no more than 2 percent of the value of U.S. imports based on the most recent 12 months of import data. Duty changes have limits. A duty may not be cut below 80 percent of its current rate. Changes also cannot be lower or higher than the rate that would result if the maximum authority in section 2111 were used. For duties set in stages, each stage may be cut by at most 20 percent and the final rate must be at least 80 percent of the final stage under section 2111. To simplify duty math, the President may exceed those limits a little—by the smaller of the gap to the next lower whole number or one-half of 1 percent ad valorem. Agreements under this authority may only be made during the two-year period that starts right after the time allowed under section 2111 ends.