The White House has granted about one out of every four requests made for an exception to it’s steel tariffs, granting relief to companies that say they can’t find comparable products made inside the U.S.
“As of February 11th, 66,001 steel and 9,548 aluminum exclusion requests have been filed. Overall, 21,468 steel exclusion decisions have been posted (16,093 were approved),” Commerce Department spokesman Kevin Manning told the Washington Examiner. The ratio of requests made to exclusions granted has held steady over the last few months. The administration has also granted 2,824 exclusions for its aluminum tariffs.
The administration officially instituted 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent on aluminum in March, citing Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. The tariffs cover all imports but the administration grants exclusions on a case-by-case basis if it decides that wouldn’t harm “national security.” That is, if the product isn’t otherwise available in the U.S.
Hundreds of companies have made requests, often filing multiple times because even marginal differences in products can necessitate a separate process. The administration has had to expand the department’s staff and bring in outside contractors to handle the avalanche of requests.
A budget bill that would resolve the conflict between the White House and Congress over federal government funding and avert another shutdown includes $4.5 million “for contractor support to implement the product exclusion process for articles covered by actions taken under Section 232,” according to a bill text posted by the House Appropriations Committee.
The administration has argued that the tariffs are crucial to national security because they ensure there is a domestic industry to supply military needs. Officials argue the tariffs are crucial to reviving the domestic metals industry. “We are confident that many more jobs will materialize as billions of dollars of planned and announced investments are completed in these industries that remain vital to our national security,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a letter Wednesday to the Wall Street Journal.
Several trade associations have countered that the tariffs are hurting the broader economy by driving up the cost of raw materials used in manufacturing. An coalition of U.S. businesses called the Tariffs Hurt the Heartland claimed Thursday that U.S. businesses paid an additional $2.7 billion in tariffs in November 2018, citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Bryan Riley, trade policy expert for the National Taxpayers Union, said the department’s figures probably understate the number of items that would actually qualify for exclusions. “It doesn’t account for all the steel-using companies that didn’t have the time to file an exclusion request because they were too busy running their businesses, or they didn’t have the money to hire a law firm to do it for them,” he said.
