Final Thoughts
January 22, 2018
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
We have mentioned this elsewhere in today’s newsletter, but it bears repeating. The recent Section 201 decision by President Trump on residential washers and solar equipment may well be a blueprint for what we might see when the Section 232 decision is made on steel. The formula seems to be pointing toward some form of quota followed by punitive duties of 20 percent or higher in the first year.
The issue is the difference between products like washing machines and steel. It’s relatively easy to regulate washers, where there are a small number of manufacturers to control. With steel, you have countries (like Vietnam) that have many steel mills and then dozens of trading companies offering their steel into the United States. The country is not the importer of record, it’s the trading company here in the United States. How do the various trading companies know how much Vietnamese steel (or if it is by product, how much galvanized) is committed to be imported into the U.S.?
