Late last night, the White House issued a Presidential Proclamation which radically alters the regime of tariffs, quota agreements, and tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on imports of steel products into the United States.  The Proclamation also mentions the tariff regime on aluminum products but not in the detail or specificity as the discussion of steel products.

We are still navigating the Proclamation, but our initial review indicates the following:

• The following special arrangements will be terminated as of March 12, 2025: the quota agreements with Argentina, Brazil, and Korea; the exclusion of Australia; the separate agreements with Canada and Mexico; and the TRQs with the European Union (EU), Japan, and the United Kingdom.  These arrangements will be replaced with the 25% tariff on steel imports.
• The special provisions regarding Ukraine – whether imports of steel products directly from Ukraine or imports of steel products process in the EU from steel which is melted and poured in Ukraine – are rescinded as of March 12, 2025.
• The Proclamation eliminates immediately the process for requesting product exclusions from the tariffs on steel.  The Commerce Department is instructed not to consider any new requests and not to renew any product exclusions that are in effect as of February 10, 2025.
• The Proclamation refers to derivative products but does not define them.  They are listed in Annexes which have not yet been released.
• The Proclamation directs the Commerce Department to establish a process for including additional derivative products by mid-May 2025.  “{T}his process shall provide for including additional derivative steel articles at the request of a producer of a steel article or derivative steel article, or an industry association representing one or more such producers, where the request establishes that imports of a derivative steel article have increased in a manner that threatens to impair the national security or otherwise undermine the objectives” of the Trump tariffs.  In addition, there is a 60-day deadline for the Commerce Department to make a decision regarding requests for coverage of additional derivative products.
• The Proclamation further directs U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that, in cases involving misclassification of imported steel products for the purpose of evading these tariffs, CBP “shall assess monetary penalties in the maximum amount permitted by law and shall not consider any evidence of mitigating factors in its determination.”
• The Proclamation also refers occasionally to the tariffs on aluminum imports, and we are reviewing to try to determine the effect of those references on the current status of the tariff rates, quota agreements, and TRQs on aluminum.

We will continue to send you updates and analysis as we review the densely worded Proclamation and any other information released by the White House.

In the meantime, it appears that a number of changes to Trump’s tariffs on steel imports will be beneficial for AWPA members – in particular, the process for requesting coverage of additional steel products and the elimination of the exclusion process.

By Fred Waite and Kim Young
AWPA Counsel