Adoption and Procedures of the Section 232 Automobile Parts Tariff Inclusions Process

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>Bureau of Industry and Security</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Part 705</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250728-0130]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0625-AB30</RIN> <SUBJECT>Adoption and Procedures of the Section 232 Automobile Parts Tariff Inclusions Process</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> On March 26, 2025, the President issued Proclamation 10908, “Adjusting Imports of Automobiles and Automobile Parts into The United States” (Automobile Proclamation). The Automobile Proclamation required the Secretary of Commerce to establish a process for including additional automobile parts articles for passenger vehicles and light trucks within the scope of the tariffs imposed by the President in the Automobile Proclamation. This interim final rule (IFR) establishes the requisite process. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective September 17, 2025. Comments on this interim final rule must be received by the International Trade Administration no later than November 3, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Public comments on this rule are to be made via <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/ITA-2025-0041.</E> The <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> ID for this rule is: ITA-2025-0041. Please refer to RIN 0625-AB30 in all comments. All filers submitting comments in <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> should use the name of the person or entity submitting the comments as the name of their files, in accordance with the instructions below. Anyone submitting business confidential information should clearly identify the business confidential portion at the time of submission, file a statement justifying nondisclosure and referring to the specific legal authority claimed, and provide a non-confidential version of the submission. For comments submitted electronically containing business confidential information, the file name of the business confidential version should begin with the characters “BC.” Any page containing business confidential information must be clearly marked “BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL” on the top of that page. The corresponding non-confidential version of those comments must be clearly marked “PUBLIC.” The file name of the non-confidential version should begin with the character “P.” Any submissions with file names that do not begin with either a “BC” or a “P” will be assumed to be public and will be made publicly available at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Commenters submitting business confidential information are encouraged to scan a hard copy of the non-confidential version to create an image of the file, rather than submitting a digital copy with redactions applied, to avoid inadvertent redaction errors which could enable the public to read business confidential information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For questions regarding this interim final rule, contact Emily Davis, Director for Public Affairs, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 202-482-3809, <E T="03">Emily.Davis@trade.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Section 232 and Adjustments of Imports of Automobile Parts</HD> On March 26, 2025, the President issued Proclamation 10908, “Adjusting Imports of Automobiles and Automobile Parts into The United States,” 90 FR 14705 (April 3, 2025) (Automobile Proclamation), which imposed additional tariffs on certain automobiles and automobile parts. The Automobile Proclamation also required the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) to establish a process for including additional automobile parts articles within the scope of the tariffs imposed by the President in the Automobile Proclamation. In addition to inclusions made by the Secretary, this process provides for including additional automobile parts articles at the request of a domestic producer of an automobile or automobile parts article, or an industry association representing one or more such producers, where the request establishes that imports of additional automobile parts articles have increased in a manner that threatens to impair the national security or otherwise undermines the objectives set forth in Proclamation 9888 (84 FR 23433, May 17, 2019), the Automobile Proclamation, or any subsequent proclamation addressing the threatened impairment to the national security under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended (19 U.S.C. 1862) (Section 232). When the Secretary receives such a request from a domestic producer or industry association, the Secretary, after consultation with the United States International Trade Commission and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is to issue a determination regarding whether to include the articles within 60 days of receiving the request. Any additional automobile parts articles that the Secretary has determined to be included within the scope of the tariffs described in the Automobile Proclamation are to be so included on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time the day after a notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> describing the Secretary's determination. The notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> is to be made as soon as practicable but no later than 14 days after the Secretary's determination. The International Trade Administration (ITA), in this interim final rule (IFR), establishes the process for including additional automobile parts articles within the scope of the tariffs imposed by the President in the Automobile Proclamation. While the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is promulgating this rule, ITA will administer the process described in the rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Purpose of This IFR</HD> The Automobile Proclamation required that this process be established within 90 days, meaning no later than June 24, 2025. The Secretary of Commerce established the automobile parts articles inclusion process on June 24, 2025, as required by the Automobile Proclamation. <E T="03">See https://www.trade.gov/press-release/department-commerce-announces-new-auto-parts-tariff-inclusions-process.</E> ITA, through BIS, is publishing this IFR to inform the public of the establishment of this process. The automotive industry is in a state of rapid development for various technologies, including in the areas of alternative propulsion systems, autonomous driving capabilities, and other advanced technologies. It is important that manufacturers supporting both the commercial vehicle industry and the defense sector have the opportunity to identify new and emerging automotive products with importance for defense applications to be considered under the scope of this action. In addition, there are many automotive products that fall under broad tariff codes that include parts beyond the automotive sector. While the Department made a best estimate of the most important tariff codes to apply to the scope of the Section 232 action, industry experts may be aware of broad Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) codes that have become increasingly important to automotive uses that were not originally considered under this investigation. It is expected that up to 50 respondents from the private sector will complete submissions to be considered for automobile parts inclusion submissions in connection with Proclamation 10908. Those submissions are estimated to take each respondent eight hours to complete, four times per year, resulting in total estimated respondent burden of approximately 1,600 hours. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Submitting Public Comments on This Interim Final Rule</HD> The comment submission process on this IFR is separate and distinct from the comment submission process for the inclusion requests. For submitting comments on this IFR in <E T="03">regulations.gov,</E> follow the instructions as specified in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this IFR. For submitting comments on inclusion requests, please follow the instructions as provided in the regulatory text within Supplement No. 2 to 15 CFR 705. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Amendments To Establish the Automobiles Inclusions Process</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Submission Phase</HD> Domestic producers of automobiles or automobile parts articles, or any industry association representing one or more such producers, may submit automobile parts articles inclusion requests during two-week submission windows that ITA will open four times annually at the beginning of each January, April, July, and October, and the first such window is to open for two weeks on October 1, 2025. All two-week submissions will occur on the first of the prescribed months. Submissions of inclusions requests must be submitted in PDF format via email to <E T="03">AutoInclusions@trade.gov.</E> For the request to be considered valid, the requestor must provide the following in their request: • Clear identification of the requestor ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> producer of an automobile or automobile parts article, or an industry association of such producers); • A precise description of the automobile parts article that is the subject of the request; • The eight or ten-digit HTSUS classification requested to be included in the scope of the tariffs; • An explanation of why the article is an automobile parts article; • Pertinent information on the domestic industry affected; • Statistics on imports and domestic production; • A description of how and to what extent imports of the article have increased in a manner that threatens to impair the national security or otherwise undermines the objectives set forth in Proclamation 9888, the Automobile Proclamation, or any subsequent proclamat ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 35k characters. 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