Section 232 Investigations

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On September 15, 2020, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (“USTR”) issued a statement that it will “modify the terms of the 10 percent tariff imposed in August on imports of Canadian non-alloyed unwrought aluminum.”  The United States will resume duty-free treatment of the Canadian aluminum retroactive to September 1, 2020, based on…

On August 28, 2020, President Donald Trump issued a Presidential Proclamation No. 10064 to adjust U.S. imports of steel from Brazil for national security reasons. In May 2018, President Trump granted an exemption for Brazilian steel products from additional tariffs imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which provides the president…

As promised by Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s Department of Finance issued a notice of its intent to impose countermeasures to President Donald Trump’s reimposition of 10% Section 232 national security tariffs on imports of certain Canadian aluminum products. See Update of August 7, 2020. The products subject to countermeasures will be…

On August 6, 2020, President Donald Trump issued a Presidential Proclamation reimposing the 10% ad valorem tariff on imports of non-alloyed unwrought aluminum products from Canada. Referencing his original Section 232 Proclamation No. 9704 of March 8, 2018 (see Update of March 8, 2018), President Trump stated that imports of this form of…

On August 5, 2020, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) issued an opinion remanding the denial of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of a U.S. importer’s requests for exclusion of certain steel articles from Section 232 tariffs of 25 percent. In July 2019, JSW Steel (USA), Inc. (JSW)…

On July 14, 2020, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled in Slip Opinion 20-98 that a proclamation President Donald Trump issued increasing Section 232 duties on steel imports from Turkey beyond those previously implemented under a prior proclamation violates statutorily-mandated procedures and the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under…

On June 22, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari of an appeal by the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) regarding the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s authority to impose tariffs on steel imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The Court issued no formal statement; in declining to hear…

The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has released a statement indicating that is it extending the deadline for filing public comments until July 3, 2020 for the Section 232 investigation into imports of certain electrical steel components for incorporation into transformers, electrical transformers and transformer regulators. The initial comment period was…

On June 2, 2020, Secretary Wilbur Ross announced that the Department of Commerce will initiate an investigation into whether the quantities or circumstances of imports of vanadium into the United States threaten to impair U.S. national security. This investigation is the result of a petition filed by U.S. producers AMG Vanadium LLC (Cambridge, Ohio) and…

The Department of Commerce has issued a Federal Register notice seeking public comment on (1) the appropriateness of the information its Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) requested and considered in applying the Section 232 exclusion criteria to product exclusion requests, and (2) the efficiency and transparency of the product exclusion process itself. This request…