Posted on 02/07/2022 3:37:52 PM PST by Right Wing Vegan
he United States will ease tariffs on steel imported from Japan, officials announced Monday, in the latest move by President Joe Biden’s administration to resolve trade disputes started under his predecessor Donald Trump.
Beginning in April, Japan will be allowed to pay lower duties on exports of up to 1.25 million tons of steel per year to the United States, ending the 25 percent levies Trump imposed in June 2018 on metal imports from the country and others, citing national security concerns.
The dispute with Japan was one of a number Trump initiated during his time in office that Biden has worked to resolve, and follows an agreement Washington reached last year to end the metal tariffs on the European Union.
“I’m pleased to announce the deal we reached will strengthen America’s steel industry and ensure its workforce stays competitive, while also providing more access to cheaper steel and addressing a major irritant between the United States and Japan, one of our most important allies,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement.
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the deal would “protect a vital American industry, our workers and their families,” as well as level the playing field against China.
“This agreement, combined with last year’s resolution with the European Union, will help us combat China’s anti-competitive, non-market trade actions in the steel sector, while helping us reach President Biden’s ambitious global climate agenda,” she said.
However, the deal does not resolve all the outstanding trade issues between the two countries.
Levies of 10 percent on Japan’s aluminum exports will remain for now, while the new tariff system covers less than the 1.8 million tons of steel the United States imported from Japan in 2017, the last year before the levies were imposed, according to Commerce Department data.
– ‘Melted and poured’ –
The Alliance for American Manufacturing welcomed the agreement, particularly a provision ensuring imported steel must be “melted and poured” in Japan so that other nations don’t transship their metals through the country.
“The arrangement announced between the United States and Japan today recognizes the value of steel production to America’s economic and national security,” the trade group’s president Scott Paul said in a statement.
He added that the tariffs imposed under Trump brought “relief for America’s vital steel industry,” while Biden’s move widened “the focus on global overcapacity, while maintaining appropriate tools to mitigate threats to our economic and national security.”
Trump’s Republican administration engaged in a number of trade spats with allies and adversaries alike, many of which were unresolved when Biden took office in January 2021.
Among those were the tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imported from several countries, including the European Union and Japan.
Japan and the United States are among the world’s top steel producers, ranked behind China, the European Union and India, according to data from the World Steel Association.
At the time, critics rejected Trump’s citing of national security grounds in his decision, while the levies poisoned relations with Brussels and other allies.
– Smoothing things over –
The Biden administration worked out an agreement to lift the EU metals tariffs last October, and this month announced a deal to resume trade in mussels, clams, oysters and scallops after a decade-long halt.
Last June, Britain and the United States agreed to suspend retaliatory tariffs levied during a 17-year dispute over state aid for European planemaker Airbus and US rival Boeing, and also opened talks last month to resolve their differences over the metals tariffs.
Myron Brilliant, head of international affairs for the US Chamber of Commerce, spoke positively of the Japan deal, but said Washington must do more.
“The US should drop the unfounded charge that metal imports from the UK, Korea, and other close allies represent a threat to our national security — and drop the tariffs and quotas as well,” he said in a statement.
Does anybody have a list of tariffs or import restrictions Japan has on us? Stuff like that’s always relevant when talking about tariffs we have on others.
OMG...he’s nuts...dumping steel has been a sore point for YEARS...
Wonder if the steelworkers union is good with this?
Oh good news
More steel jobs lost, more dependence on another long supply line Asian country with a ridiculous traid imbalance
Great having the Lemur like microencephalitic Gina Raimondo in charge of international trade agreements that she’s never had a damn thing to do with as the governor of a nearly irrelevant state
Er, “trade”
I wager anything that this is a desperate attempt on Brandon’s part to get inflation down.
Is Hunter involved in Japanese steel?
Shipping thousands of metric tons of steel across the pacific ocean will totally tackle global warming
Michael, we’re bigger than Nippon Steel!
Steel unions, of course; it keeps their Commiecrats in office. Union steelworkers, not so much.
That’s less than 20% of what we sent to the bottom ‘41 - ‘45.
[ Wonder if the steelworkers union is good with this? ]
Lunchbucket joe is going to have his lunchbucket shoved right up his freekign caboose!
I don’t know what is going to happen between now and 2024 and if Pres Trump will run again.
If he does, the only people he owes anything to will be the people that send him back. It for damn sure won’t be Congress, the bureaucrats, the Chamber of Commerce or Wall St.
And for that, I’d love to see him do some type of presentation on just how he disrupted their money making machine, what the old trade deals were all about and how his squad worked to make them fairer to the country and the people. Just let folks know exactly how bad we’ve been and will be sold out by the aforementioned. The sentiment to get rid of all of them grows by the day. Might as well put it all out there, in very simple terms and let the folks make their own decisions.
It would be a nice addition to Schweizer’s book, I think.
1. Imposing tariffs on raw materials like steel and aluminum helps protect those two industries, but it hurts all the OTHER industries in the U.S. that rely on those materials for their manufacturing processes.
2. There was probably no political upside to protecting those industries. I did some research when these tariffs were in the news a few years ago, and was surprised to learn that there were only something like 85,000 steelworkers in the U.S. at the time. In a nation of 330 million people that barely even registers on the political radar screen.
Great having the Lemur like microencephalitic Gina Raimondo
He He
Mission accomplished!
We have to make fun of the idiocracy that rules us now
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