US BIS interim final rule establishing Section 232 automobile parts tariff inclusions process (90 FR 44767)

Mechanism

Proclamation 10908 (26 March 2025) imposed a 25% Section 232 tariff on imported passenger vehicles and a defined initial list of automobile parts (engines/engine parts, transmissions/powertrain, electrical components), and directed the Secretary of Commerce to stand up — within 90 days — an administrative process by which additional parts could later be added to the tariff scope. The Secretary nominally established that process on 24 June 2025; this 17 September 2025 interim final rule is the formal codification of that process in the Federal Register and the binding regulatory text that downstream petitioners (US producers, industry associations, certified labour unions) must use.

The rule sets out:

• Recurring inclusion windows. Four two-week submission windows

per year, opening on the first calendar day of January, April, July and October. Petitions outside a window are not accepted.

• Eligible petitioners. US producers of an automobile part, US

industry associations representing such producers, and certified bargaining representatives of workers employed in the production of such parts. Importers and foreign producers are not eligible petitioners (they may comment).

• Decision timeline. ITA issues a public determination

memorandum within 60 days of the close of each window stating whether the requested HTSUS classification is added to the Section 232 scope, with summary rationale.

• Comment period. Public comments on the interim final rule

itself were due by 3 November 2025; the rule remained in effect during the comment period.

The first operational window under the rule opened on 1 April 2026 (per the 24 March 2026 opening notice, FR Doc 2026-05681).

Downstream implications

• The IFR is the procedural plumbing — not itself a new tariff —

but it is the gateway through which the Section 232 auto-parts tariff perimeter expands. Each recurring window is a forward catalyst that can incrementally widen the USD 460bn-coverage Proclamation 10908 tariff to new HTSUS lines without further presidential action.

• Eligibility is asymmetric in favour of domestic producers and

unions, who are the only parties who can petition for inclusion. This is a structural tilt toward scope-widening over time rather than scope-narrowing.

• The 60-day determination clock is short relative to typical trade

remedy timelines, so each window can produce concrete coverage changes within a quarter of opening.

• Companion rule on the medium- and heavy-duty vehicle (MHDV) side

is the 22 October 2025 / 17 October 2025 Section 232 MHDV/parts proclamation (already filed); the auto-parts inclusions process is the analogous machinery on the light-vehicle side.

Open questions

• Track determination memoranda issued after each window for

cumulative HTSUS-line additions to the Section 232 auto-parts scope; severity uplift on the parent action would follow if the inclusions process materially broadens covered trade.

• Whether the interim final rule is finalised unchanged after the

3 November 2025 comment period or revised in response to importer/foreign-producer comments (revisions, if any, will be themselves a follow-on Federal Register action).