301. atala + 122. atala: Txina-AEB tarifa-pilaketa berria deszifratzea
When transporting goods between China and the United States in 2026, the duty bill on a single container no longer comes from one line item. It’s a stack — a base duty rate, a China-specific Section 301 surcharge that’s been piling up since 2018, and a Section 122 emergency surcharge that was introduced in February 2026 after the Supreme Court knocked down the previous tariff regime. Importers can no longer afford to ignore how these layers interact; it’s the difference between a landed-cost model that actually works, and one that discreetly bleeds margin on every shipment.
This guide covers what Section 301 and Section 122 are, how they stack on top of each other for China-origin goods, what’s changed in recent months and what importers should expect as the Section 122 surcharge approaches its projected sunset on July 24, 2026. When we can, we translate the Legalese into numbers you can really utilise in a quote.
A Quick Refresher: Two Very Different Legal Tools
Section 301 and Section 122 emanate from different portions of U.S. trade law — a fact that counts more than most importers know. The U.S. can invoke Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to After a formal investigation into unfair trade practices such as intellectual property theft or coerced technology transfer, a Trade Representative imposes tariffs on a particular trading partner. They have no built-in expiry date and no statutory cap on the rate. That’s why the China Section 301 tariffs first imposed in 2018 are still very much alive today.
Section 122, by contrast, is a blunt and transitory instrument. It empowers the President to apply an emergency import tariff of up to 15 percent on imports from virtually any country, but only for a maximum of 150 days and only to remedy a specified balance-of-payments crisis. It was never meant to be a permanent tariff regime — it is more of a pressure valve that Congress inserted into law for short bursts of executive action.
The reason both are important now is timing. Within hours of the Supreme Court invalidating the administration’s larger IEEPA-based tariffs on February 20, 2026, the White House shifted to Section 122, signing a proclamation that placed a flat fee on practically all imports beginning February 24. That tax didn’t replace the Section 301 on China-origin goods, but came in addition to it.
Section 301: The Permanent Layer on China-Origin Goods
The Section 301 tariffs on China apply to around 370 billion dollars of annual trade, organised into four product lists that were accumulated in phases between 2018 and 2019, and then altered again during a 2024 review under the Biden administration. The 2024 hikes targeted crucial areas — electric vehicles, semiconductors, solar cells and certain medical products — and were phased in through January 2026, so some of the highest rates on this list are still relatively fresh.
The practical impact is a broad spectrum of rates based on whatever list your HTS code is on. List 4A, at 7.5 percent, covers most regular consumer products, and goods on Lists 1 through 3 tend to be at 25 percent. Rates are substantially higher in strategic areas, some of them effectively prohibitive.
| Produktuen Kategoria | Section 301 List | Egungo Tasa |
| General consumer goods (electronics, housewares) | List 4A | 7.5% |
| Industrial machinery, chemicals, select components | List 1–3 | 25% |
| Erdieroaleak | 2024 Review | 50% |
| Eguzki-zelulak | 2024 Review | 50% |
| Ibilgailu elektrikoak | 2024 Review | 100% |
| Certain medical products (syringes, PPE) | 2024 Review | 25-100% |
There are some remaining exclusions for particular HTS codes and USTR has extended them periodically – the present list of exclusions includes hundreds of product codes and has been extended through late 2026 for numerous categories. Sometimes a small exclusion might decrease the price dramatically therefore it’s a good idea to check the USTR exclusion database with your specific 8- or 10-digit HTS code before assuming the headline list rate is what you pay.
None of this was altered by the Supreme Court verdict in February. The Court’s ruling concerned tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a separate legislative jurisdiction altogether. The Section 301 tariffs on China remain completely in place despite the outcome of the IEEPA litigation.
Section 122: The Temporary Surcharge That Changed the Math
Section 122 came into being virtually by accident, at least in its planning. The administration, facing a sudden loss of tariff revenue and power after the Supreme Court declared in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that IEEPA does not authorise the president to levy tariffs, sought an instant alternative. The fastest tool available was Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, because it gives the President stand-alone authority — no investigation, no waiting period — to respond to a declared balance-of-payments emergency.
The administration claimed a goods trade deficit of almost $1.2 trillion a year and a significantly negative net international investment position as reason for the announcement. The surcharge took effect February 24, 2026 at 10 percent ad valorem, and was broadly applied across countries and product categories, with exemptions for goods already in transit, certain agricultural and religious materials, USMCA-qualifying goods from Canada and Mexico, and a handful of other narrow carve-outs listed in the proclamation’s annexes.
What sets Section 122 apart from all other tariff tools in use today is its built-in clock. The statute limits such surcharges to 150 days unless Congress extends the period, and there is no pending legislation at this time. That puts a firm, calendar-driven expiration date on it of July 24, 2026 — a date that has been up in nearly every trade warning issued in the past few months, for it is one of the few truly fixed points in an otherwise fluid tariff climate.
The legal story has been far from resolved since February. May 7, 2026. A divided panel at the U.S. The Court of International Trade decided that the proclamation exceeded the president’s statutory authority since it did not specify the type of balance-of-payments deficit that Section 122 expressly demands. The decision permitted a permanent injunction — but only for the three plaintiffs who sued, not for importers generally. The Department of Justice appealed, and on June 11, 2026, the Federal Circuit issued a stay of the lower court’s injunction, meaning that CBP has continued to collect the 10 percent fee from everyone, including plaintiffs, while the appeal is ongoing.
For most importers, the net result of months of litigation has been essentially no real change: the surcharge continues to be collected at the border and the best course of action is to continue paying it and to retain the right to a refund if the courts ultimately decide the other way. Separately, CBP’s CAPE system began accepting electronic refund files through the ACE Portal in April 2026. Importers who paid duties during the earlier, broader IEEPA period (April 2025 through February 2026) are entitled to get refunds on that IEEPA part specifically.
Stacking the Layers: What China-Origin Shipments Actually Pay
Tariffs on commodities from China are cumulative, not just a basic percentage. An accurate landed cost estimate generally begins with the base Most Favoured Nation duty rate for your HTS code, plus the applicable Section 301 list rate, plus Section 122 where the goods are not exempt, plus – if your product falls within steel, aluminium, copper or autos – Section 232 on top of all that. Section 232 does not stack on top of Section 122 in all situations, so the exact combination depends on the legal annotations linked to your individual tariff line. And this is an area where a tiny classification error may cost thousands of dollars across a cargo.
| eszenatokia | Nazio Handiko Nazio Nagusiaren Oinarria | Artikulua 301 | Artikulua 122 | Effective Total |
| Garment, HTS 6109.10.00 | 16.5% | %7.5 (4A zerrenda) | 10% | ~ 34% |
| Kontsumo-elektronika orokorra | 0% | %7.5 (4A zerrenda) | 10% | ~ 17.5% |
| Industrial component, List 1–3 | 2-5% | 25% | 10% | ~% 37-40 |
| Steel product (Section 232 applies) | 0-5% | 25% | 10% + 25% (232) | 60% + |
| Eguzki-zelulak | 0-1.5% | 50% | 10% | ~ 60% |
It is worth pausing to reflect on how much better this is than the first half of 2026. Prior to the Supreme Court order, reciprocal duties on Chinese goods under IEEPA had raised certain effective rates to 145 percent. Section 122 is limited by statute to 15 percent — currently 10 percent — thus the realistic upper bound on most China-origin items has declined to somewhere in the 35 to 45 percent range for non-strategic exports, which is a considerable reduction, but still historically high.
To give an actual scale on the consumer side of things: a 200 dollar garment that would have been duty-free under the old de minimis regulations can now have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 68 to 75 dollars in combined duties when you mix the base MFN, Section 301, and Section 122 together, not even including broker costs. Many cross-border vendors are shifting away from parcel-by-parcel postal shipment to bulk pre-clearance and warehouse-and-distribute models, as the fixed costs of formal entry are easier to absorb at scale.
The July 24 Cliff and What Comes Next
All the advisories on the subject give the same date. The Section 122 surcharge will expire automatically at 12:01 a.m. unless Congress acts. Eastern, 150 days after it went into force, on July 24, 2026. The administration can’t extend it on its own, and while a bill called the Reclaim Trade Powers Act has been sponsored in Congress, it’s for the opposite purpose — reducing presidential tariff authority rather than extending it.
The administration is not going to allow that revenue just disappear. On March 11 and 12, 2026, USTR initiated two broad new Section 301 investigations: one into structural manufacturing overcapacity in 16 economies, including China, and another investigating forced-labor enforcement tactics in 60 of the major U.S. trading partners. Both were operated on an accelerated pace particularly so a successor tariff structure might be available before the Section 122 clock runs out. USTR’s announced deadline for completing these investigations was July 20, 2026, four days before the sunset, and the plan on the table would impose Section 301 tariffs of around 10 to 12.5 percent across dozens of countries.
This replacement concerns less for China in particular than it does for other countries, simply because China has its own dedicated Section 301 framework that is not harmed by any of this. If the new forced labour or overcapacity Section 301 tariffs are finalised, those rates could be layered on top of existing China-specific List 1 through 4A duties for China-origin goods — though as of this writing, the exact stacking rules had not been finalised, and unlike the current China Section 301 tariffs, the new forced-labor Section 301 duties are not expected to stack on top of Section 232.
Meanwhile, Section 232 is exploring pharmaceuticals, active pharmaceutical ingredients and medical devices are going their separate ways with 100 percent duties on patented pharmaceutical products to be implemented July 31, 2026 for larger companies and September 29 for smaller companies. Unlike Section 122, Section 232 does not have a statutory cap on the rate or a built-in expiration — which is why the administration keeps returning to it as a durable, long-term instrument.
The Supreme Court also closed one door that had been open for years in mid-June: on June 15, 2026, it refused to consider the long-running legal challenge to Section 301 Lists 3 and 4A on Chinese goods, effectively ending that litigation and confirming those tariffs are here to stay, regardless of how the Section 122 saga plays out.
What This Means for Your Sourcing and Shipping Strategy
But none of this changes the underlying commercial reality: China is still the dominant manufacturing base for a big proportion of categories sold into the U.S. market, and reshoring a full supply chain is neither quick nor inexpensive. For most importers, the most realistic approach is to get smarter about classification, timing and logistical structure, rather than trying to find your way out of the tariff stack entirely.
Getting HTS categorisation right is the best thing you can do, and also the thing you are most likely to screw up when pressed for time. A product misclassified by merely one subheading can cost a product a 7.5 percent Section 301 fee, instead of a 25 percent rate. Used in conjunction with bonded warehouse or foreign trade zone techniques, this allows importers to avoid paying duty until the products actually enter U.S. commerce, which can matter enormously for cash flow when the combined duty rate on a shipment can surpass a third of its declared worth.
This year it’s also a real lever to time entries around statutory deadlines like July 24. Goods cleared by formal entry before the Section 122 surcharge expires are locked into whatever rate is in effect at the time of entry, while goods held back and entered later could fall under a totally different and as yet unspecified successor regime. Such timing decisions are very dependent on the availability of a freight partner that understands the maritime transit timeline and regulatory calendar sufficiently to plan backward from a court-imposed deadline.
This is exactly the kind of situation where a logistics partner with deep, specific China-U.S. trade finds its way. Since 2010, Shenzhen Topway Shipping Co., Ltd. has been a professional cross-border e-commerce logistics solutions provider. Its founding team has over 15 years of total experience in international logistics and customs clearance, particularly China-U.S. corridor — the precise trade path where Section 301 and Section 122 butt heads most directly.
Topway Shipping’s service covers the whole logistics chain, from the first-leg transportation leaving China, to offshore gordailu in the US, to customs clearance processing, and last-mile delivery to the end customer. For importers contemplating a transition from parcel-based postal shipping to a bulk pre-clearance and warehouse-and-distribute model in light of the current tariff environment, that kind of end-to-end coverage alleviates much of the coordination burden that would otherwise be placed directly on the importer. The company also provides flexible full-container-load and less-than-container-load ocean freight service from China to major ports around the world, allowing shippers the option of growing or shrinking capacity when tariff laws change without having to lock in a new freight contract each time.
More and more, having a partner that is tracking these regulatory changes day to day, rather than finding out about a rate change from a customs broker’s invoice, is part of what sets importers who safeguard their margins apart from those who are swallowing unneeded expenditures.
A Note on De Minimis and Small-Parcel Shipments
One shift that gets less attention than the headline tariff rates, but probably transformed cross-border e-commerce more than any single percentage, is the effective end of duty-free treatment of low-value shipments from China. The de minimis exception has, for years, permitted shipments priced under $800 to enter the United States without formal duties, enabling direct-to-consumer platforms to send individual items directly from Chinese warehouses at reasonable costs. The exemption has been slowly tightened over the past two years on goods of Chinese origin, and the present tax stack applies in full even to shipments that would have previously been duty free.
This means many merchants who have built their whole business model around parcel post shipment are now recalculating from start in practice. A model that worked when a 50 dollar item came in duty free, does not function when that same item now has a combined MFN, Section 301 and Section 122 rate that can be anywhere from 20 to 40 percent depending on the HTS code. This is one of the key reasons bulk consolidation and official entry through a bonded facility have grown more attractive than in the past, even for sellers who have avoided the increased paper work of formal customs entry altogether.
Ondorioa
The U.S.-China The tariff scenario mid-2026 is far more complicated than it was a year ago, but it is not unknowable. Section 301 is the permanent core of the China-specific tariffs, accumulated over nearly a decade of investigations and reviews, and it’s not going away regardless of what the courts rule on anything else. Section 122 is the wild card, a stopgap, legally challenged fee racing to its own statutory expiration of July 24, 2026, with a Section 301-based replacement already being created behind it. The practical task is the same no matter which way you go for any business moving goods between China and the United States: accurately classify, model the full stack rather than a single headline rate, watch the July 24 deadline closely, and work with logistics partners who can adjust routing and entry timing as the rules keep moving. The tariff stack isn’t going to get less complicated before it gets more stable but it doesn’t have to be unmanageable with the proper freight and customs partner.
Maiz egiten diren galderak
Q: Does Section 122 replace Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods?
A: Zero. The two stack on top of each other for goods of China origin. Section 301 is a permanent, China-specific tariff regime; Section 122 is a temporary, broad-based surcharge applied to most trading partners. A shipment from China can deliver both of these.
Q: When does the Section 122 surcharge expire?
A: It’s set to expire at 12:01 a.m. by statute. Eastern on July 24, 2026, 150 days after it takes effect on Feb. 24, 2026, unless Congress approves legislation extending it, which is not currently projected to occur.
Q: Is the 10 percent Section 122 surcharge still being collected despite the court ruling against it?
A: Yeah. In May 2026 the Court of International Trade found the tax illegal, but the Federal Circuit postponed the order in June pending a government appeal, and in the meantime CBP continues to collect the surcharge from all importers.
Q: What replaces Section 122 after it expires?
A: USTR has proposed additional Section 301 tariffs of around 10 to 12.5 percent on dozens of nations, based on continuing investigations into forced labour and manufacturing overcapacity, that would replace it, and aimed for a targeted completion date shortly before the July 24 sunset.
G: Ordaindu ditudan tarifen itzulketa jaso al dezaket?
A: Importers who paid duties under the previous IEEPA-based tariff regime from April 2025 through February 2026 can request a refund using CBP’s ACE Portal. Section 301 duties are not refundable, and the availability of a Section 122 reimbursement remains contingent upon the outcome of the present court appeal.
