Ohio's two senators and Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., are asking the commerce secretary and U.S. trade representative to convince Canada and Mexico "to either reduce their exports of down-stream GOES products to the United States, or utilize more U.S. GOES in the production of those products." In a letter that leaned heavily on the Commerce Department's conclusion that the import of transformer components from neighboring countries is a national security threat, they said grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) is produced by Cleveland-Cliffs in two locations in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and supports 2,000 jobs. When a 25% tariff was imposed on steel, the market shifted so that cores, core parts and laminates became the imports for transformers, rather than the steel. Imports of GOES dropped by 56% the year after the tariffs began.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is asking for comments on the Section 232 exclusion process, including the request, objection, rebuttal and surrebuttal process, the standards of review, transparency of the process, and General Approved Exclusions. Officials are particularly interested in hearing ideas about how to reduce the volume of submission errors and rejected filings in the exclusions portal; whether reducing the length or type of attachments could speed the processing of requests; whether there should be a public summary of confidential business information underpinning exclusion requests or objections; whether there should be public disclosure of delivery times in requests or objections; whether evidence supporting requests or objections should have to be from the last 90 days; and how to streamline the online forms. Comments should be filed at regulations.gov, docket number BIS-2021-0042, by March 28.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 31-Feb. 6:
The Biden administration will allow 1.25 million metric tons of steel to enter under a tariff rate quota, it said Feb. 7, as long as those products are melted and poured in Japan. That would be more than the U.S. imported from Japan in 2019 and 2020, and more than last year -- preliminary data says that the U.S. imported about 989,000 metric tons of steel from Japan in 2021.
Foreign-trade zones would continue to lose out to foreign distribution companies under the changes to de minimis proposed in The Import Security and Fairness Act, the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones said in a recent letter to House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who introduced the bill (see 2201180053). A version of that bill, which would no longer end de minimis treatment for goods subject to Section 232 tariffs, among other changes, was included in the America Competes Act (see 2201260029). While NAFTZ sent its letter before the bill was attached to America Competes, "we don’t support either version because neither allows U.S. companies operating in a U.S. FTZ the same ability to leverage Section 321 de minimus as their foreign competitors can and will still be able to do with the current language of the bill," emailed Melissa Irmen, NAFTZ's chair.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 24-30:
While the U.S. is either the second or No. 1 trading partner for the European Union, Canada and Japan, their ambassadors warned that some of the actions the U.S. has taken in the last five years undermine its alliances. They spoke at the end of the first day of the Washington International Trade Association annual conference.
Tariff rate quotas on European steel are really meant to be a gap-filler while the U.S. and the European Union figure out a way to offer import preference to cleaner steel, said Greta Peisch, general counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Peisch, the European Commission staffer responsible for trade relations with the U.S., the General Motors counsel on Legal Affairs and Trade and a former Trump administration trade official were speaking on a panel about the shift from tariffs to tariff rate quotas, and what the next step would look like.
The U.S. and the United Kingdom this week began talks aimed at resolving their trade dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs (see 2112210051), the two countries said in a Jan. 19 joint statement. Although they didn’t release a timeline for the negotiations, the two sides will try to seek “effective solutions” for the Trump-era Section 232 aluminum and steel tariffs and the U.K.’s subsequent retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials that lead the group's international policy initiatives said again that the U.S. is wasting an opportunity by letting trade negotiations stall. The vice presidents in charge of Africa, Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Asia policy spoke on a Jan. 18 webinar that was a follow-up to the State of American Business program.