To Implement The United States-Oman Free Trade Agreement

Proclamation 8332 of December 29, 2008

To Implement The United States-Oman Free Trade
Agreement

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

1. On January 19, 2006, the United States entered into
the United States-Oman Free Trade Agreement (the
``Agreement''). The Congress approved the Agreement in
section 101(a) of the United States-Oman Free Trade
Agreement Implementation Act (the ``Implementation
Act'') (Public Law 109-283, 120 Stat. 1191) (19 U.S.C.
3805 note).

2. Section 105(a) of the Implementation Act authorizes
the President to establish or designate within the
Department of Commerce an office that shall be
responsible for providing administrative assistance to
panels established under chapter 20 of the Agreement.

3. Section 201 of the Implementation Act authorizes the
President to proclaim such modifications or
continuation of any duty, such continuation of duty-
free or excise treatment, or such additional duties, as
the President determines to be necessary or appropriate
to carry out or apply Articles 2.3, 2.5, 2.6, 3.2.8,
and 3.2.9, and the schedule of duty reductions with
respect to Oman set forth in Annex 2-B of the
Agreement.

4. Consistent with section 201(a)(2) of the
Implementation Act, Oman is to be removed from the
enumeration of designated beneficiary developing
countries eligible for the benefits of the Generalized
System of Preferences (GSP) on the date the Agreement
entered into force. Further, consistent with section
604 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (the ``1974
Act'') (19 U.S.C. 2483), I have determined that other
technical and conforming changes to the Harmonized
Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS) are
necessary to reflect that Oman is no longer eligible to
receive the benefits of the GSP.

5. Section 202 of the Implementation Act sets forth
certain rules for determining whether a good is an
originating good for the purpose of implementing
preferential tariff treatment provided for under the
Agreement. I have decided that it is necessary to
include these rules of origin, together with particular
rules applicable to certain other goods, in the HTS.

6. Section 204 of the Implementation Act authorizes the
President to take certain enforcement actions relating
to trade with Oman in textile and apparel goods.

7. Subtitle B of title III of the Implementation Act
authorizes the President to take certain actions in
response to a request by an interested party for relief
from serious damage or actual threat thereof to a
domestic industry producing certain textile or apparel
articles.

8. Executive Order 11651 of March 3, 1972, as amended,
established the Committee for the Implementation of
Textile Agreements (CITA), consisting of
representatives of the Departments of State, the
Treasury, Commerce and Labor, and the Office of the
United States Trade Representative, with the
representative of the Department of Commerce as
Chairman, to supervise the implementation of textile
trade agreements. Consistent with section 301 of title
3, United States Code, when carrying out functions
vested in the

President by statute and assigned by the President to
CITA, the officials collectively exercising those
functions are all to be officers required to be
appointed by the President with the advice and consent
of the Senate.

9. Section 604 of the 1974 Act, as amended, authorizes
the President to embody in the HTS the substance of
relevant provisions of that Act, or other Acts
affecting import treatment, and of actions taken
thereunder, including the removal, modification,
continuance, or imposition of any rate of duty or other
import restriction.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. 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 of America, including but not limited to
section 604 of the 1974 Act; sections 105(a), 201, 202,
and 204, and subtitle B of title III, of the
Implementation Act; and section 301 of title 3, United
States Code, and having made the determination under
section 101(b) of the Implementation Act necessary for
the exchange of notes, do hereby proclaim:

(1) In order to provide generally for the preferential
tariff treatment being accorded under the Agreement, to
set forth rules for determining whether goods imported
into the customs territory of the United States are
eligible for preferential tariff treatment under the
Agreement, to provide certain other treatment to
originating goods of Oman for the purposes of the
Agreement, to provide tariff-rate quotas with respect
to certain originating goods of Oman, to reflect Oman's
removal from the enumeration of designated beneficiary
developing countries for purposes of the GSP, and to
make technical and conforming changes in the general
notes to the HTS, the HTS is modified as set forth in
Annex I of Publication 4050 of the United States
International Trade Commission, entitled, Modifications
to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States
Implementing the United States-Oman Free Trade
Agreement (Publication 4050), which is incorporated by
reference into this proclamation.

(2) In order to implement the initial stage of duty
elimination provided for in the Agreement and to
provide for future staged reductions in duties for
originating goods of Oman for purposes of the
Agreement, the HTS is modified as provided in Annex II
of Publication 4050, effective on the dates specified
in the relevant sections of such publication and on any
subsequent dates set forth for such duty reductions in
that publication.

(3) The amendments to the HTS made by paragraphs (1)
and (2) of this proclamation shall be effective with
respect to goods entered, or withdrawn from warehouse
for consumption, on or after the relevant dates
indicated in Annex II of Publication 4050.

(4) The Secretary of Commerce is authorized to exercise
my authority under section 105(a) of the Implementation
Act to establish or designate an office within the
Department of Commerce to carry out the functions set
forth in that section.

(5) The CITA is authorized to exercise my authority
under section 204 of the Implementation Act to exclude
textile and apparel goods from the customs territory of
the United States; to determine whether an enterprise's
production of, and capability to produce, goods are
consistent with statements by the enterprise; to find
that an enterprise has knowingly or willfully engaged
in circumvention; and to deny preferential tariff
treatment to textile and apparel goods.

(6) The CITA is authorized to exercise the functions of
the President under subtitle B of title III of the
Implementation Act to review requests, and to determine
whether to commence consideration of such requests; to
cause to be published in the Federal Register a notice
of commencement of consideration of a request and
notice seeking public comment thereon; to determine
whether imports of an Omani textile or apparel article
are causing serious damage, or actual threat thereof,
to a domestic industry producing an article

that is like, or directly competitive with, the
imported article; and to provide relief from imports of
an article that is the subject of such a determination.

(7) All provisions of previous proclamations and
Executive Orders that are inconsistent with the actions
taken in this proclamation are superseded to the extent
of such inconsistency.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-ninth day of December, in the year of our Lord
two thousand eight, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and thirty-
third.