The American Metals Supply Chain Institute (AMSCI) is calling on President Joe Biden to eliminate section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum to reduce domestic costs and boost employment in the U.S. metals supply chain. Fastmarkets reports in a recent article.
The U.S. steel and aluminum industries have benefited from a variety of protectionist measures that have outlived their usefulness, AMSCI Chairman John Foster said in a letter to Biden dated Monday, Feb. 1. He added that in today’s decentralized global marketplace, such measures “create more economic animus, confusion and costly bureaucratic micromanagement of the economy” than benefit.
“Tariffs are a policy to protect a few at the expense of many,” Foster told Fastmarkets.
President Donald Trump’s previous administration imposed Section 232 tariffs and quotas in 2018, which included 25% tariffs on steel imports and 10% on aluminum imports. Some countries, such as South Korea and Brazil, were exempted from the tariffs and are instead subject to quotas.
But many domestic steel producers and the United Steelworkers union do not share AMSCI’s views.
The USW, as well as the Steel Manufacturers Association, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), the Committee on Pipe and Tube Imports and the American Institute of Steel Construction, have urged the Biden administration to maintain Section 232 steel tariffs and quotas, and last month cheered Biden’s executive order strengthening the “Buy America” laws.