LIVONIA, Michigan -- The consuls general of Mexico and Canada in Detroit encouraged auto industry players to lobby the next administration, to let it know that tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods would be disruptive to the integrated auto industry, and to push for the administration to comply with a panel ruling on auto rules of origin.
President-elect Donald Trump's love of tariffs was the through line of his campaigns and his first administration, but a consultant and a think tank scholar say that how exactly he will hike duties next year -- on what products, from which countries and how high -- are unknowable.
Although the EU ambassador emphasized all the ways that the EU and the U.S. coordinate on trade, a panelist discussing the future of the U.S.-EU trade relationship demonstrated the ways the two economic powers talk past each other at times.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
If a reelected President Donald Trump uses the existing Section 301 tariffs program to hike tariffs on all Chinese goods by at least 60%, that's likely to survive a court challenge, said two law professors who spoke during a Washington International Trade Association webinar on the executive branch's ability to make deals and impose trade restrictions without congressional say-so.
The Court of International Trade in a decision made public Oct. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's rejection of eight Section 232 steel tariff exclusion requests from importer Seneca Foods Corp. on its tin mill product entries. Judge Gary Katzmann said the rejections were backed by substantial evidence and in line with agency practice.
Domestic steel producer Zekelman Industries filed a lawsuit on Oct. 21 in a Washington, D.C., federal court alleging that the Mexican government breached its 2019 agreement with the U.S. to slow imports of Mexican steel products. The company argued that Mexico's breach of the deal "has devastated the U.S. steel industry," forcing the company to close two plants due to the oversupply of cheap steel (Zekelman Industries v. United States, D.D.C. # 24-02992).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 23 ruled that steel tubing with insulating material imported by Shamrock Building Materials is classifiable as steel tubes of heading 7306, rather than insulated conduit of heading 8547, subjecting the steel tubing to 25% Section 232 tariffs.
The Aluminum Association is pleased by the hike in Section 301 tariffs on aluminum products -- even though it applies to more products than it wishes were covered -- and says Mexico's reporting is helping with trade remedies covering Chinese, Russian and Belarussian steel.
Less than a month from the election, Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves invited U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., and Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su to speak at his company's Coatesville, Pennsylvania, mill about how recent policy has supported steelworkers.