Section 232 Investigations

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On March 10, 2021, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) issued an opinion dismissing all claims by Thyssenkrupp Materials NA Inc. (Thyssenkrupp) challenging the constitutionality of the federal government’s administration of Section 232 aluminum and steel duties under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The CIT addressed whether the modified process created by the…

On February 4, 2021, a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) denied a broad challenge by Universal Steel Products and several other importers (“plaintiffs”) to Section 232 tariffs that former President Donald Trump placed on steel imports. The plaintiffs had challenged both the report by the U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”)…

In a Federal Register interim rule to be published on December 14, 2020, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced that it was revising certain aspects of the process for requesting exclusions from the additional duties and quantitative limitations implemented on imports of aluminum and steel under Section 232 of the…

On December 4, 2020, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced that it was terminating its Section 232 national security investigation into imports of mobile cranes.  The announcement notes that petitioner Manitowoc Company, Inc. requested on September 8, 2020, that its petition be withdrawn due to “a changing economic environment due…

On November 5, 2020, the United States and Mexico announced that they had concluded consultations pursuant to their Joint Statement of May 17, 2019 to address the transshipment of grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) from outside North America into the United States through GOES-containing downstream products. The May 2019 Statement committed Mexico (and Canada) to implement…

On September 25, 2020, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a Federal Register notice reopening the public comment period for its Section 232 national security investigation of imports of vanadium. BIS initially opened the investigation into vanadium imports on June 2, 2020 (see Update of June 3, 2020) as…

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% 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 the…

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…

On August 21, 2020, the United States and the European Union (EU) agreed to tariff reductions on several products unrelated to ongoing trade disputes involving Section 232 national security tariffs on aluminum and steel products and retaliatory tariffs under the WTO dispute involving large commercial aircraft. In a Joint Statement issued by the Office of…