Commerce Dept calls for steep tariffs or quotas on steel, aluminum

Krisztian Bocsi | Bloomberg

An employee beside a blast furnace cast house at ThyssenKrupp AG’s steel plant in Duisburg, Germany.

Among the recommendations in the reports are a global tariff of 24 percent on all steel imports. An alternative option would impose a tariff of at least 53 percent on steel from 12 countries including China and Brazil.

A 63 percent quota of those countries’ 2017 steel imports is recommended in the report.

The aluminum recommendations include a 7.7 percent tariff on imports from all exporter nations. Ross also suggested a 23.5 percent tariff on aluminum products from China, Hong Kong, Russia, Venezuela and Vietnam.

An aluminum import quota on all countries of 86.7 percent of their 2017 imports was also an option detailed in the report.

Trump could determine that specific countries should be exempted from the proposed quota, based on the economic or security interests of the United States. The president could also consider the countries’ willingness to work with the United States to address global excess capacity and other challenges facing the U.S. aluminum and steel industries.

Companies can also seek appeals based on U.S. production of steel and aluminum and specific national security-based considerations.

Ross said each of the measures should enable U.S. steel producers to operate at 80 percent average capacity utilization rates or better based on available capacity in 2017.

According to the Aluminum Association, there are five U.S. smelting facilities that are operating with three partial curtailments. This is a fraction compared with the 24 operational smelters up and running in 2001.