Building Products

Trade and Tariffs

The building products sector includes various building and construction products in HS chapters 25, 68 to 70, and 94.

Building products accounted for less than 1 percent of total U.S. industrial exports to Colombia in 2006, totaling $30 million. The top U.S. exports to Colombia in this sector were refractory bricks, float glass, certain stone articles, and prefabricated buildings. Colombian tariffs range between 5 and 20 percent with an average of 13.2 percent in 2006.

Colombian exports to the United States in this sector totaled $213 million in 2006, or 3.2 percent of the total industrial good exports to the United States. Top Colombian exports to the United States were cement, ceramic tiles, and porcelain fixtures. The United States’ tariffs range between zero and 38 percent with an average of 2.3 percent. All Colombian exports of building products enter the United States duty-free under the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA) and Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) tariff preferences.

Tariff Elimination

Tariffs will be phased out according to five tariff elimination categories: immediate elimination, equal cuts over five years, unequal cuts over five years, equal cuts over seven years, and equal cuts over ten years. Tariff elimination under the unequal five-year staging category will proceed with a 10 percent cut in the tariff in years one and two, a 30 percent cut in year three, a 20 percent cut in year four, and the remaining 30 percent tariff cut will take place in year five.

For building products, 58 percent of U.S. industrial exports will receive duty-free treatment immediately upon implementation of the Agreement. Tariffs on another 26 percent of exports will be eliminated over five years. Duties on the remaining 16 percent of U.S. exports will be eliminated over ten years.

The United States agreed to consolidate all ATPA and ATPDEA tariff preferences into the final tariff elimination schedules. This means that all building product exports from Colombia will continue to receive duty-free treatment.

International Trade Administration
Manufacturing and Services
Office of Trade Policy Analysis