After the Senate Finance Committee chairman called out Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., as a hurdle to getting Section 232 reform through the committee, in a speech on the Senate floor (see 1911050043), Wyden said there is no legislation to introduce. “I share the chairman’s goal of legislation to discipline Donald Trump’s erratic use of trade authorities that could gain overwhelming bipartisan support, and I look forward to working toward that goal,” he said in a statement issued the evening of Nov. 5. "As of now, that legislation does not exist, due to concerns on both sides of the aisle.”
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Oct. 28 - Nov. 1 in case they were missed.
The Senate Finance Committee's attempt to give Congress more of a say on how Section 232 tariffs or quotas are applied is stalled again. Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, when he was speaking with reporters a week ago, said a markup of a bill along those lines could happen in November if he could find a compromise that could pass out of committee. The chairman's deadline for introducing a bill has slipped repeatedly through the year (see 1908070058 and 1906130033).
The Inspector General at the Commerce Department criticized some actions at the Bureau of Industry and Security in granting or denying Section 232 exclusions from steel tariffs and quotas and from aluminum tariffs. The memo, published Oct. 28, said that department officials and interested parties had conversations that were not part of the official record of requests or objections, and "following some of these off-record communications, Department officials took subsequent action consistent with such communications, giving the appearance that the Section 232 exclusion request review process is not transparent and that decisions are not rendered based on evidence contained in the record."
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross responded to Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., complaining that her latest letter is wrong to say that his department has not provided "a substantive and comprehensive response" to her earlier questions and complaints about the Section 232 exclusion process.
The idea that the U.S. might lower de minimis for Canadian and Mexican shipments, because those countries did not raise their thresholds as much as the U.S. wanted, is not going to be part of the NAFTA rewrite, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Oct. 29.
The World Trade Organization will convene a dispute settlement panel to judge whether India had the right to impose tariffs on apples, almonds, motorcycles and other products (see 1906170053). The panel was approved for formation in Geneva Oct. 29. Under the additional tariffs, American apples are taxed at 70 percent, compared with 50 percent for other countries' apple exports; the tariff on almonds and walnuts increased by 20 percentage points; and chickpeas and lentils have an additional 10 percentage points of duties. Most of these products are imported at low volumes, but India projected that it would collect more than $100 million in tariffs on almonds in the shell, and more than $20 million on apples. India says it is justified because the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum are really safeguards to protect American mills and foundries, not national security measures. India is one of many countries involved in litigation at the WTO over the steel and aluminum tariffs -- others include Norway, Russia, the 28 countries of the European Union and China.
A domestic manufacturer and labor union filed petitions on Oct. 22 with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission requesting new antidumping duty investigations on forged steel fittings from India and South Korea, and new countervailing duties on the same product from India. Commerce will now decide whether to begin AD/CVD investigations on forged steel fittings that could eventually result in the assessment of AD/CV duties. The petition was filed by Bonney Forge Corporation and the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union (USW).
CBP has assessed about $43 billion in duties under the major trade remedies started during the Trump administration as of Oct. 2, according to CBP's trade statistics page. That includes $34 billion in duties from the Section 301 tariffs on goods from China, up around $3 billion from about a month ago. The assessed tariffs under Section 301 now include the 15 percent tariffs that took effect on Sept. 1 (see 1908270066). CBP also has assessed about $6.3 billion under the Section 232 tariffs on steel and $1.8 billion under tariffs on aluminum. The Section 201 trade remedies on washing machines, washing machine parts and solar cells (see 1801230052), imposed Jan. 23, 2018, account for $1.1 billion in assessed tariffs.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters: