Author: Thomas B. McVey

On March 19, 2018 the Commerce Department (“Commerce”) published procedures for private companies to seek exclusions from the recent steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by President Trump under the Administration’s national security investigation under §232 of the Trade Expansion Act.1 Under these procedures, companies may request to be exempt from the new tariffs if they meet the standards for exclusion set forth in the release. The procedures also permit private parties to submit objections to exclusion requests submitted by other parties. The procedures were set out in an Interim Final Rule published in the Federal Register (the “Rule”) that amends Commerce’s National Security Industrial Base Regulations. A summary of the new procedures as set forth in the Rule is as follows:

• Types of Submissions. There are three types of submissions contemplated under the Rule: (i) requests for tariff exclusions; (ii) objections to requests for tariff exclusions filed by other parties; and (iii) comments on the Rule.
• Who Can Submit Exclusion Requests: Individuals or organizations using steel articles identified in Presidential Proclamation 9705 or aluminum articles identified in Proclamation 9704 in business activities in the U.S. (e.g., construction, manufacturing, or supplying steel/aluminum product to users) may submit exclusion requests.

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Author: Susan Kohn Ross

On March 1, 2018, President Trump announced his intention to adopt the recommendations of the Dept. of Commerce and impose tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. The formal signing is said to be taking place “next week.” President Trump has stated those tariffs will be 25% on foreign-made steel and 10% on foreign-made aluminum. Hopefully when the final document is signed and released, it will become clear how long these tariffs will be in place and whether they will be accompanied by any other measures, such as quotas.

Commerce’s original steel recommendations were: (i) a 24% tariff on all steel imports; or (ii) a 53% tariff on steel imports from Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Malaysia, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam; which (iii) could include a quota from all other countries equal to their 2017 level of imports; or (iv) no tariffs, but a quota on all steel products from all countries equal to 63% of their 2017 import levels.

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Despite the amount of geo-political upheaval; the business reality is that economic growth remains robust. The future may appear littered with threats, but opportunities remain plentiful.

The coverage of political developments by the media is invariably dispiriting and negative to trade. Of course, most of it is necessary as significant political happenings in the US and Europe naturally assume great importance in western media reporting, although much of the subject matter is highly transient. Good news about global trade is much harder to find.

Experience suggests human happiness is in inverse proportion to political noise.

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Despite President Trump’s America First philosophy, the UK’s bumbling (though still unclear) exit from the EU, or any number of other “glass half empty” stories that dominate the news, the reality for business generally is that life goes on and deals can and must be done.

Undoubtedly, certain important industries fear any new barrier to the international trade on which they have long built their business models, so often reliant on complex supply chains with multiple cross border product flows.

Damage to such industries does of course carry risk for some national economies and directly affected workers.

Nonetheless, there is a world of smaller, less affected enterprises across so many countries which already export, or want to find new export opportunities. These may sometimes be disrupters to existing global businesses, such as innovative technology which is changing so much of the business environment, regardless of political noise.

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