The Steel Industry Gets What It Wants on Tariffs
U.S. steel producers, which prevailed in their push for the Trump administration to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, have also proved equally effective—and far more effective than many other industries—at avoiding tariffs they don’t want.
Steel producers petitioned the U.S. Trade Representative in September for relief on 132 tariff lines, primarily for raw materials and chemicals used in the steelmaking process that members of the Steel Manufacturers Association import from China. They were able to get 66, or half, of them removed from the final list.
Overall, the U.S. took nearly 300 tariff lines off the list, meaning about one out of every five removals was backed by the steel industry. A tariff line can refer to a single product but sometimes includes more than one.
Most other major industry groups had a much lower success rate in petitioning for exemptions on the grounds that tariffs would hurt members’ ability to do business, according to a Wall Street Journal review of letters from more than a dozen groups that filed such requests to the USTR. The National Retail Federation and National Restaurant Association were granted less than 5% of their requested exemptions. The National Association of Home Builders got two of its nearly 500 requested exemptions removed from the list.
The greater rate of success seen by the steel industry, which has close ties to the Trump administration, has sparked criticism of preferential treatment.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-steelmakers-early-champions-of-tariffs-shift-focus-to-making-them-go-away-1540200601 (paid subscription)
