Calling the process seemingly “arbitrary, opaque and subject to political favoritism,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called for the Commerce Department’s Office of the Inspector General to launch a probe into the process for granting exemptions to the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs.
“[M]edia reports have raised questions about political interference in the exemption process, and about whether the Administration is making unbiased decisions based upon the facts and the merits of each exemption request,” Warren said in a letter to the Commerce Department Inspector General Peggy Gustafson.
The administration instituted tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum earlier this year. The tariffs were primarily directed at China and justified on nation security grounds to protect domestic industries. Individual companies could request to be exempted from the tariffs, with the Commerce Department making the decision on a case-by-case basis.
[Related: With Trump’s tariffs, even the exemptions are costly and time-consuming]
The department has received a total of 30,035 exemption requests as of Tuesday. It has made decisions in 3,559 of those requests, approving 2,101 to date.
Warren’s letter pointed to the case of a Russian company, Rusal, whose owner is allegedly part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, that was initially granted an exemption to the aluminum tariffs. The exemption was rescinded after Warren’s office made inquiries, with the Commerce Department stating that granting the exemption had been an error. Warren also expressed skepticism regarding the rationale for exemptions granted to two of largest domestic manufacturers, U.S. Steel and Nucor.
“[T]his process appears to be running on an ad hoc basis, with little transparency, and bending to political pressure from well-connected lobbyists,” she wrote.
