However, the TAA does not restrict foreign trade outside of federal procurement. This means that you can freely sell non-TAA compliant products in the commercial market. The Trade Agreements Act was enacted to regulate trade agreements between the United States and abroad. One of the main features of the law is that it limits U.S. government procurement to products made in the U.S. or made in certain countries. These products are then called "TAA compliant". Your email address will not be published. Mandatory fields are marked * (c) The Government evaluates bids in accordance with the policies and procedures in Part 25 of the Federal Procurement Regulations. For items covered by the WTO GPA, the government will evaluate offers of finished products manufactured in the United States or named in a country without taking into account the restrictions of the Buy American Act. The Government will only consider bids for finished products manufactured in the United States or designated by a country for award, unless the contracting officer determines that there are no tenders for those products or that the tenders for those products are not sufficient to meet the requirements of such solicitation. Contracts in the GSA Schedule are also subject to the Trade Agreements Act, so if you want to sell or sell goods to the government, you need to make sure your products comply with the TAA.

TAA compliance is only required for federal procurement. Government agencies cannot purchase non-TAA products for contracts exceeding the $180,000 threshold (value subject to change). Virtually all values in Annex GSA exceed the threshold, so one could say that the TAA applies to all Annexes. Let`s say I have a GSA contract and my product is TAA compliant. If the supplier of part of the product changes at that time, but also complies with the TAA, what should I do in this case? Could that be a problem? Simply put, you cannot sell products to the government that do not comply with the Trade Agreements Act. So, if you are considering competing for a GSA calendar contract, you need to evaluate the true origin of your products very carefully. And if you`re already excellent, it`s important that you comply with your TAA compliance. For example, if you take aluminum from one country, PET (polyethylene terephthalate) from another country, and then make aluminum foil and cover it with a PET coating, the resulting aluminum lid is a "substantially processed" product. On the other hand, if you take concentrated fruit juice and then dilute it with water, the resulting product is not "substantially processed", since no fundamentally new properties, names or uses have appeared in the process. If a product comes from a specific country, it is considered "TAA compliant". Which in turn means that you can legally sell this product under your GSA Schedule Agreement.

It is your responsibility to control and ensure that all products you include in your GSA contract are finished products manufactured in the United States or designated in a country. For this reason, it is important to regularly check the origin of the components and parts of your product. If the product you deliver to the government does not become TAA compliant because the named countries` contribution to the total cost of the product falls below 50%, your GSA schedule contract will become invalid. More information on the importance below. | Follow us on Google+ or Twitter for TAA & GovCon updates | GSA Schedule contracts are subject to the Trade Agreements Act (TAA), which means that all products listed in the GSA Schedule contract must be manufactured or "substantially converted" in the United States or a country designated by the TAA. The named countries are made up of: Suppose you have an assembly plant in the United States that makes a product consisting of three parts. Part A represents 25% of the cost and comes from Canada, Part B represents 40% of the cost and is imported from Taiwan, Part C represents 15% of the cost and comes from China, and labour represents 20% of the manufacturing costs. Since only 15% of the cost comes from a non-TAA compliant country (China), the product is significantly processed in the United States and named countries so that it is TAA compliant. These requirements make perfect sense. What could be more false than federal purchases from companies that do not work for the benefit of their own country. Now let`s look at the part B supplier, which has also been converted into Chinese components. And now, 55% of the cost of the product comes from unnamed countries, which essentially makes your product non-COMPLIANT with the TAA.

I found no authority for the following statement on this website: "A product is TAA compliant if: At least 50% of the total manufacturing costs come from the United States or certain countries." The idea behind this term is that the product must undergo certain significant changes (manufacturing, assembly, processing, etc.) that lead to the distinctiveness, name or use of the resulting new product. It is therefore assumed that a "substantially processed" product comes from the country where these transformations were carried out. Can you please give a quote to the authority. I think it sounds more like a Buy American Act standard. The following list was taken from the Federal Procurement Regulation (FAR) and last updated in November 2016 with the addition of Moldova and Ukraine and has been updated since June 2020. To access this FAR clause directly, please click here: Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 52.225-5, Trade Agreements. Now you know what the TAA (Trade Agreement Act) is and why it`s important to be TAA compliant. As a professional, you may want to focus solely on your business without having to delve deeper into TAA-related issues. In this case, hiring a professional sourcing consulting firm can be very helpful in passing TAA certification and keeping your inventory TAA compliant for every GSA calendar contract you have.

This article explains what the Trade Agreements Act is, what it means for a product to be TAA compliant, and why TAA compliance is important for any company that wants to work with the government through the GSA Schedules. Hi, I`ve read a lot about what TAA compliance is and what counts as TAA compliant devices, but I couldn`t find any information on how to start the process of getting TAA certification or on the duration or costs of the process. Could you help us? Since compliance with the TAA is essential to maintaining any Schedule GSA contracts you may have, you should always ensure that your products comply with the requirements of the Trade Agreements Act throughout the contract performance period. Here is a brief checklist that you must follow to ensure the TAA eligibility of your goods: (a) Seller certifies that any final product, other than those listed in paragraph (b) of this provision, is a final product manufactured in the United States or designated in a particular country within the meaning of the clause of this application entitled "Trade Agreement". TAA compliant countries are designated countries and the United States The complete list of TAA compliant countries can be found in far, part 25. As a result, non-TAA compliant countries are countries outside this list, e.B China, Russia, North Korea. .