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Showing posts from December, 2019

New Steel Tariffs on Brazil and Argentina?

President Trump announced via tweet on Monday that he was imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Brazil and Argentina due to both governments devaluating their currencies. These two countries previously had reached a deal with the Trump administration to avoid Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs by agreeing to quotas. Both Argentina and Brazil were exempted from the 232 steel and aluminum tariffs in May 2018. The tariffs can’t be “restored” because the two countries were not subject to tariffs in the first place. The exemptions for both countries required Presidential Proclamations, and to change the quotas to tariffs would require new proclamations as tariffs can’t be re-imposed by a tweet. At this writing, we are still awaiting these proclamations. If the President does move forward with these tariffs, it would likely lead to an immediate legal challenge. A current U.S. Court of International Trade case (Transpacific Steel v U.S.) is focused on this exact issue of