Manufacturing Companies Call For Immediate Section 232 Repeal

As the American Journal of Transportation reported last week, a group of more than 300 U.S. manufacturers sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking for the immediate termination of the Trump administration’s Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs.

The letter was organized by the Coalition of American Metal Manufacturers and Users, the National Foreign Trade Council, and other groups representing steel and aluminum-using U.S. companies. Read the letter here.

MSCI is reporting this information for its members’ information only. As a reminder, MSCI consistently has argued that global overcapacity and other unfair trading practices, particularly by China, have harmed the U.S. steel and aluminum markets.

To address this circumvention, in 2017 MSCI advised federal officials to provide relief for producers up and down the supply chain and to consider the consequences of any new trade policy, including: the economic impact of global overcapacity on the entire domestic metals supply chain; transition times and implementation rules to any new policy; availability of domestic metals to meet U.S. national security needs, as well as general industrial and consumer demand; and trade flows under current free trade agreements, including the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA). MSCI also asked that Canada and Mexico be excluded from any trade penalties.

Click here to review all of MSCI’s advocacy on Section 232 tariffs.

In related news: The Wall Street Journal last week explored how Chinese manufacturers circumvent global trade rules by building factories in other countries. Read the article here.