President Biden Extends EU Metals Tariffs Exemption For Two Years

As Connecting the Dots reported last month, officials from the United States and European Union (EU) had reached an impasse on trade negotiations regarding the United States’ Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum. To give the two countries more time to settle the matter, on December 28 President Joe Biden released presidential proclamations extending the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) system the United States had put into place in lieu of the tariffs for imports of steel and aluminum products from the EU.

The TRQ system now will not expire until December 31, 2025. (Without that proclamation, the Section 232 tariffs would have resumed for EU products later this month.)

In a presidential proclamation, Biden said the two sides had made “substantial progress” and were “continuing their discussions.”

The TRQ allows up to 3.3 million metric tons of EU steel and 384,000 tons of aluminum into the United States tariff-free, reflecting past trade levels, with the tariffs applying for any further amounts. Stay tuned to Connecting the Dots as discussion between the United States and EU officials continue.

As a reminder, when it comes to Section 232 tariffs, Connecting the Dots reports developments for members’ information only.

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, MSCI has 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.