The U.S. Department of Commerce announced its procedures for excluding products from the recently announced tariffs on steel and aluminum product imports.
The department will start accepting exclusion requests from U.S. industries on March 19 at 8:45 a.m., a press release from the department said.
“These procedures will allow the Administration to further hone these tariffs to ensure they protect our national security while also minimizing undue impact on downstream American industries,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Ross will consult with other administration officials to evaluate exclusion requests, taking into account national security considerations. In evaluations, the Ross will consider whether a product is produced in the U.S. of a satisfactory quality or in a sufficient and reasonably available amount. A single response to each exclusion request will be posted on regulations.gov.
Only individuals or organizations using steel or aluminum articles identified in the presidential proclamations implementing the steel and aluminum tariffs (proclamations 9704 and 9705) and engaged in business activities in the U.S. may submit requests. Exclusion requests will be posted for a 30-day comment period on regulations.gov.
Separate exclusion requests must be submitted for each unique steel or aluminum product import. For an exclusion request to be considered, the requester must provide a full factual description of the specific product, its properties, and its quantity.
Organizations can submit an objection filing on an exclusion request with specific information on the product that their company can provide that is comparable to the steel or aluminum product that is the subject of the exclusion request.
Organizations filing an objection should also provide information on the production capabilities at steel or aluminum manufacturing facilities that they operate in the U.S.; the availability and delivery time of the products that they manufacture relative to the specific steel or aluminum product under the request; and how suitable its product is for the application.
Both exclusion requests and objection filings will be available for public viewing on regulations.gov. The department said processing exclusion requests normally will not exceed 90 days.
To view the posting on the Federal Register, click here.
The forms for submitting steel and aluminum exclusion requests and objections to exclusion requests will be available on regulations.gov on March 19. The steel docket number is BIS-2018-0006 and the aluminum docket number is BIS-2018-0002, the department says.
Copies of the forms and additional information on the exclusion process will also be available at https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/232-steel and https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/232-aluminum on March 19.
For questions concerning the exclusion process, contact [email protected] or 202-482-5642 for steel-related queries and [email protected] or 202-482-4757 for aluminum-related queries.
