Commerce Department Secretary Wilbur Ross said Wednesday that the U.S. needs a steel tariff against Canada because China’s trade practices are forcing the U.S. to impose broad international tariffs.
In a Senate Finance Committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., noted that the administration’s 25 percent tariff on steel was based on national security grounds. He asked Ross how Canada, a longtime ally, qualified on those grounds. Ross conceded that Canada presented no security threat but said the tariffs are still needed.
“The national security consideration is in the aggregate,” Ross said. “The reason it has to be a global solution is if you just looked at the raw data, you wouldn’t think China is a problem for the U.S. because what they have been doing is masking their exports to us by shipping them through other countries. So, if you just believe the raw numbers, China is shipping less to us that they did five years ago. The reality is quite to the contrary. They are disrupting the global steel markets, causing both direct and indirect damage. So, we have to do it on a global level.”
Ross argued that the tariffs are working. America’s trading partners made be complaining “bitterly,” he said, but the tariffs are there to adjust their trade practices. He said the European Union is enacting policies to limit dumping, and Japan has created its first-ever enforcement agency to monitor for the practice.
Canada initially been exempted temporarily from the tariffs as part of an administration effort to get the country to make concessions in the ongoing renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The talks have made little progress and the U.S. removed the exemption starting June 1. Canada has slammed the tariffs, pointing to its status as an ally and promised $16.6 billion in tariffs in retaliation on steel, aluminum, and other products such as beer kegs and whiskey.
