Several US companies are saying that the existing tariff regime that’s applied to imports from the People’s Republic of China is hurting imports of chemicals necessary for the manufacture of disinfectants and sanitizers. Accordingly, medical supply companies and other businesses have filed dozens of applications for tariff relief/exception related to those imports.

If such relief is granted to an importing company, it should be contingent on that company acting expeditiously to move its supply chain out of the PRC. The move also must include non-PRC suppliers that import their own component supplies from the PRC. “Expeditiously” should be explicitly defined in the relief document as a time frame or a production milestone, and the relief should automatically expire if that deadline/milestone isn’t met.

Tariff relief should be granted to all Wuhan Virus-related imports from the PRC, with the same “expeditious” criterion attached, and existing relief should be modified to include the criterion.