Almost four months after President Trump rattled Corporate America with stiff steel and aluminum tariffs, the Commerce Department has received a total of 26,403 exemption requests, more than four times as many as expected.
As of July 8, it has made final decisions on just 133 of the petitions, which seek waivers for supplies not readily available in U.S. markets and for which rising costs might threaten profits and even force small companies out of business.
“We continue to process the exclusion requests as they come in and will publish the department’s decision within the 90 days after a request is posted for public comment,” a Commerce spokesperson said in an email. Secretary Wilbur Ross has said the exemptions will be applied retroactively, meaning if a company receives an exclusion, any tariffs it paid after filing an objection will be refunded.
The secretary defended the duties, which have been widely criticized by economists, business leaders and global trading partners, to the Senate Finance Committee in late June. Members expressed concern that an understaffed Commerce Department would be unable to effectively process all of the requests, a problem Ross blamed in part on the delay in Congressional funding to hire extra staff to help process them.
The majority of requests filled have been for steel products, on which Commerce requires individual submissions for every grade, size and type of steel. After exemption requests have been filed and processed, they must be posted to the Federal Register for a 30-day public comment period before the request can be approved by the Commerce Department. According to the Bureau of Industry and Security, after the public comment period, an additional 60 days are needed to fully review a request.
President Trump imposed the tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum under national security grounds permitted by Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The move was questioned by lawmakers from his own party and scoffed at by longtime U.S. allies such as Canada, Europe and Mexico, all of which have retaliated.
The U.S. Trade Representative responded by challenge punitive duties from China, Canada, Mexico, Turkey and the European Union before the World Trade Organization.
“The actions taken by the president are wholly legitimate and fully justified as a matter of U.S. law and international trade rules,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement. “Instead of working with us to address a common problem, some of our trading partners have elected to respond with retaliatory tariffs designed to punish American workers, farmers and companies. ”
