Today, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced that the Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has begun granting its first product exclusions from the Section 232 tariffs on imports of steel.  

 

“This first set of exclusions confirm what we have said from the beginning – that we are taking a balanced approach that accounts for the needs of downstream industries while also recognizing the threatened impairment of our national security caused by imports,” said Secretary Ross. 

 

Exclusions are being granted after a thorough and transparent process of public comment and analysis to determine whether domestic industry can provide those products of a satisfactory quality and in sufficient quantity, as well as whether it is in the U.S. national security interest to grant an exclusion for a specific product. 

 

Exclusions generally are granted if there is no domestic availability and there are no overriding national security concerns with regard to the specific product. The 42 exclusion requests being issued today cover seven different companies importing steel products from Japan, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, and China. The seven companies receiving the exclusions are:  Schick Manufacturing, Inc. of Shelton, Connecticut; Nachi America Inc. of Greenwood, Indiana; Hankev International of Buena Park, California; Zapp Precision Wire of Summerville, South Carolina; U.S. Leakless, Inc. of Athens, Alabama; Woodings Industrial Corporation of Mars, Pennsylvania; and PolyVision Corporation of Atlanta, Georgia.

 

The Department of Commerce will also be denying 56 steel exclusion requests from 11 different companies.

 

Commerce will be posting decisions on steel and aluminum exclusion requests on an ongoing basis. Granted and denied exclusion requests can be viewed at regulations.gov under steel docket number BIS-2018-0006 and aluminum docket number BIS-2018-0002.

 

Background:

 

On March 8, 2018, President Trump exercised his authority under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports in order to protect national security. The President’s Section 232 decisions are the result of investigations led by the Commerce Department, after review and comment by other relevant Federal agencies. Customs and Border Protection began collecting the tariffs on March 23, 2018.

 

In his proclamation establishing the tariffs under Section 232, the President authorized the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with other appropriate Federal agency heads, to provide relief from the additional duties for any steel or aluminum articles determined "not to be produced in the United States in a sufficient and reasonably available amount or of a satisfactory quality and is also authorized to provide such relief based upon specific national security considerations. Such relief shall be provided for any article only after a request for exclusion is made by a directly affected party located in the United States.”

 

The Secretary’s Section 232 reports to the President on steel and aluminum can be found www.bis.doc.gov/232.

 

The Presidential Proclamations on steel and aluminum may be found at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-adjusting-imports-steel-united-states/ and https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-adjusting-imports-aluminum-united-states.