Despite resumed talk about tariffs on European autos, U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials say they are heartened by the first signs of progress in months for trade talks between the European Union and the United States. Marjorie Chorlins, the Chamber's senior vice president of European affairs, said with a new team at the European Commission, and the positive comments after the meeting in Davos, Switzerland, between President Donald Trump and EC President Ursula von der Leyen, the business community is feeling new hope for an improvement in relations. The officials spoke during a Jan. 24 conference call.
A class action lawsuit filed at the Court of International Trade Jan. 16 could result in billions of dollars in refunds to all importers that have paid Section 232 tariffs on steel products, though its chances of success are still unclear, and any payment is a long way off, lawyers say.
Even though steel and aluminum tariffs have been in place since March 2018, the number of exclusion requests continues to grow, according to an updated analysis from the free market-oriented Mercatus Center at George Mason University. The new portal opened June 13, and from that time to Aug. 27, companies filed an average of 4,427 requests a month. Between Aug. 28 and Dec. 6, the monthly average was 7,190. Members of Congress have repeatedly criticized what they see as arbitrary decisions, the fact that each exclusion is limited to the requestor, and the influence of domestic steel and aluminum producers on Commerce decisions (see 1910170066 and 1910300058).
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department refused to release the report explaining why auto imports are a national security threat, said people don't understand how the Section 232 statute operates. The president gave the U.S. trade representative 180 days to see if he could negotiate with Europe a mitigation of the security threat represented by auto imports. But when that 180 days expired, and Trump took no action, that doesn't mean the case is closed, Ross told Bloomberg.
A U.S. producer of pipe used in the oil and gas industry filed a lawsuit Jan. 17 challenging the denial of exclusions from Section 232 tariffs on imported steel pipe it uses as inputs. Borusan Mannesmann Pipe U.S. says the Commerce Department relied on incomplete and inaccurate statements in objections from other steel producers to find that the company’s imports could be replaced by domestic production and should not be excluded from Section 232 duties.
Congress passed a law in December that gave the Commerce Department a deadline of Jan. 19 to release its report on the national security threat of imported autos and auto parts. On Jan. 21, Commerce told Congress it would not do so. Sen. Pat Toomey, the Pennsylvania Republican who sponsored the provision in the annual spending bill, responded that “the Department of Commerce is willfully violating federal law. This is unacceptable, and my staff and I are evaluating the potential for corrective action to compel the rightful release of this report.”
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 13-19:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 6-12:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Jan. 6-10 in case they were missed.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce laid out its priorities for trade in 2020, and most of them were well-known in 2019: getting USMCA passed; ending steel and aluminum tariffs; negotiating comprehensive trade agreements with Japan, the European Union and the United Kingdom. But lesser-known priorities are: ensuring that new regulations on foreign ownership of American firms are focused on national security issues, and arguing for a balanced approach in the regulations from the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 that protect “national security without unduly hindering legitimate commerce.” The Chamber also said Jan. 9 that it wants Congress to approve “permanent normal trade relations with Kazakhstan and its graduation from the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974.”