4401.39.20

Analysis

HTS 4401.39.20 covers artificial fire logs composed of wax and sawdust, with or without added materials under heading 4401 (fuel wood, in logs, in billets, in twigs, in faggots or in similar forms; wood in chips…).

The normal trade relations rate here is zero, shared by about 61% of the 257 tariff lines in chapter 44, a useful check when a neighbouring dutiable line is a candidate. Free here means free of the base duty only: origin-specific Chapter 99 duties such as Section 301 can still be owed.

Goods from countries without normal trade relations pay the column 2 rate of 20% instead of nothing, so origin decides between free entry and a 20% duty.

Census statistics map these goods to NAICS 321999 (All Other Miscellaneous Wood Product Manufacturing), an industry of 2,327 US establishments employing 31,381 people. That concordance is how imports of this line are compared with US output.

All 9 neighbouring lines carry the same duty-free rate, so a borderline choice between them changes the statistics reported, not the duty paid.