Tag: congress

Lewis Leibowitz: Recent rulings suggest courts are reinforcing legal limits on tariff authority.

It's cliche to say it. But spring traditionally brings new hope and green shoots—whether that's looking forward to vacations or increased business activity. While I viscerally share these positive feelings, I can’t help but thinking of three areas where I'm not feeling very hopeful. Namely, the US electrical grid, the national debt, and the Iran war.

The ongoing Middle East conflict, the resurgence of broad-based tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, and the looming US midterm elections are not isolated developments. Rather, they form a kind of feedback loop in which each issue influences, and is influenced by, the others.

Tariff-related litigation in the US and around the world reflects the willingness of the president to act without consulting Congress or our trading partners. We're seeing the impulse to act without congressional approval in international relations too.

Members of the Congressional Steel Caucus met in Washington on Wednesday to assess the state of the domestic steel industry. Lawmakers and industry leaders discussed the importance of Section 232 tariffs, strong trade enforcement, and continued investment in American steelmaking.

The whole world waits for the Supreme Court to rule on the validity of President Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs. Meanwhile, the ground is shifting. Just this past week, the president changed the direction of tariff policy. He belatedly concluded that taxes on imports of products that we don’t make in the United States are inflationary

Trade groups cautioned that a prolonged shutdown could strain US industry.   

President Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Policy Act (IEEPA) were struck down again, this time on Aug. 29 by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). The legal and policy mess continues, with the next stop being the US Supreme Court.

The tariffs amount to a wholesale transformation of US trade policy from one promoting increasing international interaction to one of restricting trade to serve national strategic goals.

April 2 is when reciprocal tariffs are expected to kick in.

Are you still recovering from the election? If so, please get plenty of rest. Next year will require you to be awake and alert. Things are likely to change. We can’t be sure exactly how they will change yet.

Go forth and mingle, urged Michael Smerconish at Steel Summit 2024.

Six steel industry organizations have urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to include the Leveling the Playing Field 2.0 Act in any proposed package of legislation against China’s "unfair" trade practices.

Nucor’s top executive expressed concerns over unfair trade practices, highlighting increased steel imports from Mexico and Canada.

Steel is, mostly for historical reasons, a bellwether of international policy. No longer an industry of primary importance, its advocates still proclaim that it is. And steel still continues to punch above its weight in Washington, DC. Below are a few recent examples.

Three steel trade groups and United Steelworkers (USW) union held an event on Capitol Hill urging action on strengthening legislation against unfair trade.

Steel trade associations applauded the introduction of the “Prove It Act” into the House of Representatives on Monday.

A record 60.6 million people are expected to travel by car for the Fourth of July holiday, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). And a recent survey by The Vacationer said 75% of Americans intend to take at least one road trip this summer. In short, Americans are hitting the road this season and probably crossing a short-span steel bridge on their travels.

At the end of every Supreme Court term there are a few big cases. This year, there are more. The last day for releasing opinions comes July 1. On Friday, the Court issued a long-awaited and long-expected decision about interpreting statutes that give powers to administrative agencies, including (among many others) the Commerce Department, the […]

The chairman of a large American steel company called for Mexico to be dropped from USMCA at a steel industry conference last week. This follows earlier calls from members of Congress to reinstate Section 232 duties on Mexico. How did we get to this point?

The USMCA is an important trade agreement, as long as the member countries honor its requirements. These were the sentiments echoed by top officials of the Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) and Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) during a press conference at their annual meeting last week in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Let’s start by asking this: Were the proclamations that Nucor’s published index prices would drift lower with the reality of a bear market for flat rolled ultimately a bit premature with the benefit of hindsight?

Most metalformers expect economic activity to be level to down over the next three months, according to the May Business Conditions Report from the Precision Metalforming Association (PMA).

From integrated to EAF, from hot-dipped galv to cold-rolled sheet, to the reputable vacuum tank degasser, the steel industry definitely has its own jargon. And we know our readers know that lingo backwards and forwards. Rather than test you on it, we thought we'd do something different.

The free market operates best when it is freest. But all governments intervene in markets in response to conditions that threaten peaceful progress. President Biden decided last week that market intervention was justified. He approved a report from the US Trade Representative (USTR) that recommended continuing the “Section 301” tariffs on Chinese imports into the United States.

The USMCA should be strong enough to handle trade disagreements on steel between the US and Mexico, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute’s (AISI’s) Kevin Dempsey.

Cleveland-Cliffs’ Lourenco Goncalves thinks trade measures announced by the US government on Tuesday against China were just the opening salvo in a series of trade actions. Case in point: The Biden administration targeted China’s “unfair” trade policies with additional tariffs on an array of Chinese-made goods - including steel, aluminum, and EVs.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) appropriated more than $4 billion to the General Services Administration (GSA) and Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) for “Buy Clean” programs. The statute makes clear that GSA and FHWA purchases under these programs are limited to those with “substantially lower” emissions. There is no ambiguity in that requirement. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has defined “substantially lower” to mean products with the lowest 20% of embodied emissions when compared to similar materials.

Tariffs on unfairly traded steel and other products help to stabilize America’s most important industries, safeguard tens of thousands of jobs, and protect national security. My union, the United Steelworkers (USW), never seeks these remedies lightly. And presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, implement them only after diligent investigations documenting the harm that foreign adversaries intentionally inflict upon our country with dumping, overproduction and other kinds of trade cheating. I don’t think Lewis Leibowitz considered these points while criticizing tariffs in his excessively pro-free-trade column, “Where is the voice of the consumer?” on May 5.

The election campaign is white-hot right now, and the Biden administration is touting its protectionist message. Just this past week, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) touted this message. In a release entitled “What They are Saying,” USTR quoted many of the usual protectionist groups praising government action against Chinese steel exports and shipbuilding. Consuming industries in the United States, which employ many times the American workers as the industries seeking trade protection, were not mentioned.