WASHINGTON (BRAIN) — The Trump administration has granted MonkeyLectric LLC an exclusion from Section 301 tariffs for its China-made battery pack.
The company assembles its MonkeyLight spoke-mounted lights in California with some imported parts. In its request for the tariff exclusion, the company said the battery mount is custom-made for it in China.
"We have surveyed injection molding and PCB assembly costs in the U.S. Sourcing the product domestically or in another country is estimated to be a 6-12 month project," the company told the U.S. Trade Representative in the request.
The exclusion applies to any importer of what the USTR describes as "battery holders for bicycle signaling apparatus (described in statistical reporting number 8512.90.2000)."
The exclusion is retroactive, meaning importers can recover the extra tariffs they've paid since they were imposed in September 2018. Unless extended, the exclusion expires in August, however.
