Proclamation 6142—To Implement an Accelerated Schedule of Duty Elimination Under the United States-Canada Free-Trade Agreement

1. On January 2, 1988, the President entered into the United States-Canada Free-Trade Agreement (the Agreement). The Agreement and certain letters exchanged between the Governments of Canada and the United States were approved by the Congress in section 101(a) of the United States-Canada Free-Trade Agreement Implementation Act of 1988 (the Implementation Act) (Public Law 100-449; 102 Stat. 1851). The Agreement entered into force on January 1, 1989.

2. Section 201(b) of the Implementation Act grants the President, subject to the consultation and lay-over requirements of section 103(a) of the Implementation Act, the authority to proclaim such modifications as the United States and Canada may agree to regarding the staging of any duty treatment set forth in Annexes 401.2 and 401.7 of the Agreement as the President determines to be necessary or appropriate to maintain the general level of reciprocal and mutually advantageous concessions with respect to Canada provided for by the Agreement. Consistent with Article 401(5) of the Agreement, the President, through his duly empowered representative, on May 18, 1990, entered into an agreement with the Government of Canada providing an accelerated schedule of duty elimination for specific goods of Annexes 401.2 and 401.7 to the Agreement. The President has complied with the consultation and lay-over requirements of section 103(a) of the Implementation Act with respect to such schedule.

3. Pursuant to section 201(b) of the Implementation Act, I have determined that the modifications hereinafter proclaimed of existing duties on goods originating in the territory of Canada are necessary or appropriate to maintain the general level of reciprocal and mutually advantageous concessions with respect to Canada provided for by the Agreement and to carry out the agreement with Canada providing an accelerated schedule of duty elimination for specific goods of Annexes 401.2 and 401.7 to the Agreement.

4. Section 202 of the Implementation Act provides for certain rules of origin. I have determined that it is necessary to modify the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS) to correct technical errors in the previously proclaimed rules of origin.

5. Section 604 of the Trade Act of 1974 (the 1974 Act) authorizes the President to embody in the HTS the substance of the provisions of that Act, and of other acts affecting import treatment, and actions taken thereunder.

Now, Therefore, I, George Bush, President of the United States of America, acting under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including but not limited to sections 201(b) and 202 of the Implementation Act and section 604 of the 1974 Act, do proclaim that:

(1) In order to provide for an accelerated schedule of duty elimination and to correct technical errors in the rules of origin, general note 3 to the HTS and the tariff treatment provided for in the HTS for goods originating in the territory of Canada are modified as provided in the Annex to this proclamation.

(2) Any provisions of previous proclamations (in particular provisions concerning staged reductions in rates of duty for goods originating in the territory of Canada) inconsistent with the provisions of this proclamation are hereby superseded to the extent of such inconsistency.

(3) The amendments made to the HTS by the Annex to this proclamation shall be effective with respect to articles entered, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on the dates indicated in such Annex.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fifth day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fourteenth.

GEORGE BUSH