A past trade staffer from the Senate Finance Committee said that if Congress wanted to write tariffs into law in order to use that revenue as a partial pay-for in tax cut extensions, those tariffs would likely wait until January 2026, as that's when the tax laws would take effect.
Section 232 Tariffs
The United States currently maintains a 25% tariff on steel imports and 10% on tariff on aluminum imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. In 2018, the Trump administration imposed Section 232 Tariffs on steel and aluminum imports into the United States, citing national security concerns. The U.S. agreed to lift tariffs on Canada and Mexico after the signing of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and reached deals with the European Union, Japan and other countries to replace the tariffs with quotas for steel and aluminum imports into the U.S.
LIVONIA, Michigan -- The consuls general of Mexico and Canada in Detroit encouraged auto industry players to lobby the next administration, to let it know that tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods would be disruptive to the integrated auto industry, and to push for the administration to comply with a panel ruling on auto rules of origin.
Although the EU ambassador emphasized all the ways that the EU and the U.S. coordinate on trade, a panelist discussing the future of the U.S.-EU trade relationship demonstrated the ways the two economic powers talk past each other at times.
The Court of International Trade in a decision made public Oct. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's rejection of eight Section 232 steel tariff exclusion requests from importer Seneca Foods Corp. on its tin mill product entries. Judge Gary Katzmann said the rejections were backed by substantial evidence and in line with agency practice.
Domestic steel producer Zekelman Industries filed a lawsuit on Oct. 21 in a Washington, D.C., federal court alleging that the Mexican government breached its 2019 agreement with the U.S. to slow imports of Mexican steel products. The company argued that Mexico's breach of the deal "has devastated the U.S. steel industry," forcing the company to close two plants due to the oversupply of cheap steel (Zekelman Industries v. United States, D.D.C. # 24-02992).
The Aluminum Association is pleased by the hike in Section 301 tariffs on aluminum products -- even though it applies to more products than it wishes were covered -- and says Mexico's reporting is helping with trade remedies covering Chinese, Russian and Belarussian steel.
A hearing about the Time to Choose Act, a bipartisan bill that would ban consultants and other service providers from working both with the U.S. government and Chinese-owned companies, Senate Homeland Security Committee ranking member Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he agreed with a witness who said it could create a slippery slope.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 5-11:
Dan Ujczo, senior counsel in Thompson Hine's trade practice, said he expects a second Biden or Trump administration to say it won't authorize USMCA to continue for another 16 years in 2026, when the trade pact is up for review.
Brazil, the largest exporter of semifinished steel to Mexico after the U.S., won't be subject to the melted and poured restriction the two countries recently announced, the Mexican government disclosed last week. Aluminum cast in Brazil and steel melted and poured there won't be subject to Section 232 tariffs if they are processed in Mexico and exported to the U.S.