Commerce Department Announces Section 232 Exclusions; Notifications to Requesters Lagging
Among the companies allowed exclusions to the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum are the Connecticut company that makes Schick razors, which will be allowed to import steel blades from Japan, and U.S. Leakless, an Alabama company that imports Japanese rubber-coated gaskets used in auto transmissions. The Commerce Department accepted 42 steel product exclusion requests from seven companies, it announced on June 20.
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All the details of what was granted are not known, because only 27 of the decision memos were posted on regulations.gov as of press time. For example, it isn't clear which diameters of the Japanese bar used for making medical tools and industrial tools, imported by Nachi America, were exempted. The company in Indiana submitted dozens of requests. None of the 56 product exclusion denials for 11 companies is posted publicly, and the department did not name the companies in its press release. A department spokesman said there is no way to search for those denials on the site unless you go into an individual filing to see if one is attached, and he did not disclose their names after a request.
Simon Song, president of Hankev International, a steel distributor in California, did not know he had received an exclusion until International Trade Today called him. The first Commerce decision memo on Hankev's request was posted soon after. The press release suggested that his imports come from Belgium, but he said most of his imports come from Slovenia. "But my application is based on the item, not based the country," he said. "No matter [from] where I bring this item it should be excluded."
Song said he's very excited to learn about his success, even though he believes the exclusion is probably on the earliest request, on long product, which is not something he's currently importing. Since the tariffs hit Europe, he has brought two containers of manganese plate in, and paid about $20,000 in duties, he said. "We want to get more customers. Other companies, they pass these 25 percent tariffs to their customers. Our company eats it," he said. That means he's had no profits since the tariffs began June 1. Because none of his more than 100 requests has received an objection, Song is hopeful he'll get an exclusion on manganese plate, which is used as wear-resistant material by customers who make industrial machines.
"Our company had so many problems since we start," Song said. His young company started importing manganese plate from China. But then the U.S. implemented antidumping tariffs of 360 percent, he said, so he found suppliers in India and Europe. He said some of his competitors did not apply for exclusions. "I don’t think the European tariffs will last very long. Many of this stuff was never produced in the United States," he said.
Zapp Precision Wire, a German company in South Carolina (see 1806040061), also was granted a product exclusion on one if its earliest requests. Woodings Industrial Corporation, which imports Chinese hollow drill material, and PolyVision Corporation, which imports steel used for ceramic enameling, also received exclusions.