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Section 338 Woke Up After 96 Years: Mapping the 50% Canada Duties Onto the HTS

Computed from ExportSonar's line-level Section 338 dataset (664 records, captured 2026-10-15 from CBP's published lists) joined to our full HTS extract (23,193 lines, USITC REST export); every figure on this page is recomputed from those datasets at build time.

Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1338) sat unused as a tariff weapon for nearly a century — its last serious flirtation was diplomatic leverage against France and Spain in the 1930s — until July 20, 2026, when the President signed Proclamations 11046 and 11048 imposing a flat 50% additional ad valorem duty on articles the product of Canada, codified as subdivisions of U.S. note 51 to chapter 99 under HTSUS 9903.03. The stated trigger: Canadian provinces banned the purchase and retail of U.S. alcoholic beverages from March 2025 onward, while leaving other countries' products on the shelf. U.S. alcoholic-beverage exports to Canada fell about 81% year over year (from roughly $718 million to $137 million), and Washington reached for the one statute designed to offset exactly that kind of discrimination.

This guide does what the news coverage does not: maps the measure onto the Harmonized Tariff Schedule line by line, so an exporter, importer or customs broker can answer the only question that matters — is my eight-digit code on the list, and what does the bill become?

The three provisions, counted

Source: our Section 338 extract (data/canada_s338_measures.json), one record per unique eight-digit HTS line; 664 lines in total, each carrying duty_rate_pct = 50.0.

The headline count is 664 unique eight-digit lines. The original list published with the proclamations carried 554 lines effective August 22, 2026 (after Proclamation 11056 pushed effectiveness back one day from the original August 19); the September 15 revision via Proclamations 11064/11065 added 110 lines and struck 10, leaving 654 live lines today. Every one of them says the same thing in the schedule: an additional 50% ad valorem on top of whatever the line already bears.

Where the pain concentrates: chapters 44, 94, 04, 22

Chapter census computed from the same 664-record extract; chapters shown are the ten largest. Wood, furniture and paper dominate because the vehicle-parts annex sweeps broadly across manufactured inputs, not just automotive parts.

The breadth surprises people. A softwood moulding, an upholstered chair, a box of maple candy, a cheese wheel and a wiring harness can all cross the border on the same legal theory. That is characteristic of Section 338: because the statute retaliates against discrimination, not dumping or subsidies, the remedy attaches wherever the retaliation committee pointed — and in 2026 that meant everything from lumber to liqueurs.

The Free-base trap: 311 lines jump from zero to 50

Joining the 664 listed codes back to their MFN general rates exposes the single biggest planning hazard. 311 of the 664 lines (46.8%) have a Free general rate — meaning Canadian shippers who never paid attention to these codes because duty was zero now face a flat 50% charge. Beer made from malt (2203.00.00) is the emblematic case: historically Free, now 50% under 9903.03.12 unless an exception applies.

Base rates read from data/hts.json via exact-or-suffix match on the eight-digit code (273 exact keys, 391 single statistical-suffix joins, zero heading-level fallbacks); the 50-point add-on is arithmetically additive per the measure text.

Note what the highest-rated rows have in common: apparel and luggage. A 32% MFN sweater rate was already painful; at 82% it prices most Canadian apparel out of the U.S. market entirely. Meanwhile the dairy lines mostly sit behind prose quota gates — many begin "Described in additional U.S. note 22..." — so the effective hit depends on which quota window your shipment would have used.

The September 15 revision: plus 110, minus 10

Retaliation lists are living documents, and CBP republished a modified list effective September 15, 2026. Our diff shows 110 lines added (34 under the alcoholic-beverage provision — a batch that itself sweeps in chapter-04 cheese codes such as 0406.10.64 — and 76 motor-vehicle-annex lines) and 10 lines removed, including Irish and Scotch whisky classifications (2208.30.60, 2208.70.00), portland cement (2523.29.00), photographic chemicals (2940.00.60) and fishing rods (9507.10.00). If you screened yourself against the August version and stopped, you are working from a stale list: 16.6% of the current roster did not exist in it.

How to check your own code in thirty seconds

1. Take your buyer's eight-digit HTS classification (or look it up in our HS code search).
2. Check whether it appears under any of the three provisions 9903.03.12, 9903.03.13 or 9903.03.14 — our Canada Section 338 dataset page carries the full searchable line list with status flags.
3. Add 50 points to the general rate from the duty calculator; quote your customer FOB-plus-duty before the order, not after.

For importers with recurring Canadian supply, the practical risk is not the arithmetic — it is drift. Ten lines were struck and 110 added in a single revision announced eleven days before effectiveness. That is precisely the class of event our trade-measure tracker monitors; watch-listing your codes means the next revision arrives as an alert instead of a surprise invoice. The measure also illustrates how fast dormant authorities become recurring ones — the same logic that stacks Chapter 99 add-ons onto China tariffs can be re-pointed at any trading partner within weeks.

If the commercial stakes justify it, tiered tooling helps: the paid plans cover bulk screening and revision alerts across your whole catalogue, and a free account gets you the monthly data report. Whatever route you pick, screen against the current list — not the one from August.

Frequently asked questions

What is Section 338 and why was it used against Canada?

Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1338) lets the President impose duties up to half again the ordinary rate on goods from a country that discriminates against US commerce. It was invoked here because Canadian provinces banned US alcoholic beverages from March 2025 while leaving other countries untouched; US exports fell roughly 81%, and Proclamations 11046/11048 answered with a 50% additional duty.

Which HTS lines carry the 50 percent Section 338 duty today?

Our machine-readable census counts 664 unique eight-digit HTS lines under three Chapter 99 provisions: 9903.03.12 covering 97 alcoholic-beverage lines, 9903.03.13 covering 52 dairy lines, and 9903.03.14 covering 515 motor-vehicle-annex part lines. After the September 15 revision, 654 lines are live — 554 effective August 22 plus 60 net additions, with 10 lines removed.

How much duty do I owe if my HTS code is on the list?

Add 50 percentage points to the MFN general rate of your eight-digit line. A sweater line taxed 32% becomes 82%; a trouser line at 28.2% becomes 78.2%; and if the base is Free, as 311 of the 664 lines are, you go from zero to 50%. The add-on stacks on the column-one general rate before any special-program relief you might otherwise claim.

Did the September 15 revision change the Canada list?

Yes. Proclamations 11064 and 11065 (91 FR 58331 and 58339) added 110 eight-digit lines effective September 15, 2026 — 34 alcoholic-beverage and 76 motor-vehicle-annex lines — and struck 10 lines such as 2208.30.60 Irish and Scotch whisky and 2523.29.00 portland cement. CBP announced the modified list in its CSCS bulletin of September 11, 2026.

Sources and methodology

• Proclamation 11046 of July 20, 2026 (91 FR 46639) — statutory findings, the 81% decline figure and the invocation of section 338.
• 19 U.S.C. 1338 — official statute text (Office of Law Revision Counsel, govinfo).
• USITC Harmonized Tariff Schedule — base-rate extract vintage (REST export generated 2026-10-09).
• CBP CSCS bulletins announcing the original list and the modified list effective September 15, 2026 (attachment PDF/DOCX mirrors preserved in our dataset provenance fields).
• Morgan Lewis/MoFo and JD Supra practitioner analyses of Section 338's dormancy since the 1930s (France and Spain episodes).

Methodology: the 664-record dataset stores one row per unique eight-digit HTS line with its governing provision, sector flag, effective date, revision status and source URLs; base rates join on exact or single-statistical-suffix keys; nothing on this page is hand-transcribed.