Ohio Senator Looking for Legislative Fix to Section 232
Sen. Rob Portman will become the latest Republican to try to address the way the administration has wielded Section 232 tariffs, quotas and threats of tariffs. Portman, who represents Ohio and is a former U.S. trade representative, is working on a bill that would change the statute that currently allows the president to take action on whether imports imperil national security while recognizing "the close relation of the economic welfare of the Nation to our national security." The law says that substantial unemployment, loss of skills or investment and declining tax revenues should be considered "in determining whether such weakening of our internal economy may impair the national security."
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At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing July 12, Portman said Section 232 is the wrong tool to address auto imports. He also talked about how he thinks the statute should change, and said that national security should be defined as it is for foreign investment in U.S. firms, and as the joint chiefs of staff define it. He said Congress can disapprove of a president's decision to raise tariffs on oil in the current law, and that that power should be expanded to all products.
The other attempts to change the statute that have been proposed this year would be retroactive, and a spokeswoman for Portman said he believes those earlier drafts go too far. She said his proposal will be introduced in the next week or two, and, in addition to changing how national security is determined to be in jeopardy, it will give Congress a stronger role if allies are a target of the actions.
Portman said that if the administration misuses 232, "my concern is that we will lose the tool. We will lose it because one of two things will happen. Either other countries will respond in kind, as we’re starting to see, without showing injury, without showing any unfair trade. Or, we’ll go back to the [World Trade Organization] as we have been in the past and this time we will find ourselves losing an Article 21 case with regard to 232 because of the way we’ve used it so broadly."