Section 232 Investigations

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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…

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has published a Federal Register notice granting a limited number of product exclusion extensions from the Section 301 tariff for four imported Chinese products appearing on the first list/tranche of goods valued at $34 billion. In July 2019, the USTR granted 110 specially-prepared exclusion requests with an…

On June 25, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that its recent designations to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Entities (SDN) List targeted Iran’s steel, aluminum, copper, and iron sectors. OFAC designated eight entities operating in the Iranian metals sector including companies from Iran, the United…

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…

On May 26, 2020, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a Federal Register notice seeking public comment, data analyses, and other relevant information concerning the Department of Commerce’s May 6 initiation of a national security investigation into the impact of imports of mobile cranes pursuant to Section 232 of the…

On May 19, 2020, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a Federal Register notice seeking public comment, data analyses, and other relevant information pertaining to Commerce’s May 11 initiation of a national security investigation into imports of certain components for incorporation into transformers, electrical transformers and transformer regulators pursuant to…

On May 14, 2020, the U.S. Departments of State and Treasury and the U.S. Coast Guard issued a global advisory to alert the maritime industry and those active in the energy and metals sectors to deceptive shipping practices used to evade U.S. economic sanctions.  It is intended to provide exporters, shippers and others utilizing the…