There was also general agreement on the USTR’s proposal to...

There was also general agreement on the USTR’s proposal to establish an exclusion process that would apply to imports of machinery useful for domestic industry, temporarily exempting them from tariffs.
Syrah Resources and eVAC Magnetics both advocated for exemption for imports of Chinese machinery under the Section 301 tariffs, highlighting their importance for domestic US production of key battery materials and components.The USTR’s 2018 $34 Billion Trade Action (List 1) included a 25% tariff on imports of machinery and equipment from China, used in many cases for the production of critical materials and downstream products, including rare earth magnets and anode materials.Syrah Resources said that tariffs on Chinese equipment effectively functioned as a “tax” on US manufacturers, obstructing the development of a domestic supply chain for natural graphite, an essential mineral for EV batteries.“Specialized equipment is vital to producing active anode material [AAM] to the specification required by customers, and therefore to Syrah expanding its domestic commercial AAM operation for the US battery supply chain,” Syrah wrote.“While Syrah supported the [initial] inclusion of the tariff code [covering several equipment types], we recommended that the exclusion process extend through 2027, when graphite supply chain investments are expected to accelerate in the US,” Wells wrote.