U.S. Senators Ask President Biden To Reimpose Steel Tariffs On Mexico

A bipartisan group of senators has sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking that his administration reinstate Section 232 tariffs on Mexican steel in order to guard against Chinese circumvention.

“Allowing Chinese firms — which routinely benefit from slave labor, stolen intellectual property, and massive state subsidies — to circumvent American trade enforcement and exploit our free trade agreements threatens American production,” the letter said. “Our leaders must work diligently to replace Chinese production with American production, and that of our trading partners.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) initiated the letter, which also was signed by Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.).

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. 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.

As readers may recall, a year after imposing Section 232 penalties on steel imports from all countries, the Trump administration waived them for Canadian and Mexican shipments as long as those two countries maintained imports at historical levels. In the case of a surge, the agreement provided the importing country, in this case the United States, the ability to impose duties of 25 percent for steel and 10 percent for aluminum. The senators’ letter noted imports of Mexican steel “are now surging far in excess of historical levels of trade,” soaring “to around 500 percent over the 2015-2017 baseline. The letter further states that Mexican shipments “may rise to 700 percent this year.”