Globalization Chair : Policy brief on tariff exclusions in the US-China Trade War

As part of the Globalization Chair, policy briefs are regularly published to clarify specific research topics related to the Chair’s research.

Published on 04/11/2025 17:43

Exclusions for Sale? Tariff Exclusions in the US-China Trade War, Paris Trade Seminar – March 18, 2025

The Paris Trade Seminar held on 18 March 2025 at PSE invited Davin Chor from Dartmouth College to give a presentation on recent research titled “Exclusions for Sale? Tariff Exclusions in the US-China Trade War”, joint with Matthew Grant from Dartmouth College and Bingjing Li from the University of Hong Kong.

The authors study the exclusion process that accompanied the Section 301 tariffs imposed by the United States on Chinese imports between July 2018 and September 2019. These tariffs, which covered over two-thirds of US imports from China and increased average duties by 20 percentage points, were complemented by an exclusion mechanism that ultimately exempted $53 billion (15.8%) of targeted imports and foregone $12.6 billion in annual tariff revenue.

The authors aim to understand how firms successfully obtained tariff exclusions through lobbying and information provision, while demonstrating that this exclusion system, though seemingly flexible, paradoxically worsened overall welfare outcomes by incentivizing higher initial tariff rates.