Kelly, Balderson seek expanded tariff protections to cover U.S. electrical steel

U.S. Reps. Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Troy Balderson (R-OH) last week urged President Donald Trump to expand 232 tariffs to protect the American electrical steel industry from unfair trade practices.

“We implore the U.S. Trade Representative and the Department of Commerce to address this matter immediately before our communities lose thousands of jobs and our country sees the doors of the last maker of electrical steel shuttered,” the congressmen wrote in a March 6 letter sent to Trump.

Specifically, the lawmakers are concerned that such an outcome could happen in their home-state districts.

“This week, Lourenco Goncalves, chairman and chief executive officer of Cleveland-Cliffs testified before the Congressional Steel Caucus in Washington, D.C., that unless his company receives Section 232 tariff relief, he will be forced to close the two AK Steel plants in our districts,” according to their letter, which noted that thousands of jobs would be lost in both Butler, Pa., and Zanesville, Ohio.

“The United States cannot afford to lose the one remaining producer for grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES), for economic or national security reasons,” wrote Reps. Kelly and Balderson. “If the AK Steel plants close, this country will no longer produce GOES that go into transformers for the electrical grid, which poses a serious national security risk.”

U.S. imports of GOES from China are assessed by Section 232 tariffs under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, but the congressmen wrote that an existing loophole has permitted imported GOES into Canada and Mexico from China and elsewhere, circumventing those tariffs and allowing increased rates of slightly altered laminations, cores and core assemblies to enter the U.S., subsequently reducing AK Steel’s ability to compete.