U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) is standing up for America’s manufacturers and small businesses seeking relief from Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, and continues to seek answers from U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in an effort to improve fairness in the tariff exclusion process.
Rep. Walorski first broached the issue with Secretary Ross in March when she asked him to answer questions about the product exclusion process. And since she hasn’t yet received his response, the congresswoman is seeking answers from the secretary again.
“Since the process was established 13 months ago, it has been a master class in government inefficiency and plagued by maddening inconsistency,” Rep. Walorski wrote in an April 30 letter to Ross.
The lawmaker pointed out in her 14-page letter to Ross that the Commerce Department last year adopted some changes allowing U.S. businesses to request that a product be excluded from Section 232 tariffs if the product isn’t available domestically in sufficient quantity or quality.
The department also established a new rebuttal and surrebuttal process for such requests and on Feb. 26 began releasing its decisions for steel exclusion requests that went through the process. The department also last week released its first decisions for aluminum requests.
However, according to data in the congresswoman’s letter, the Commerce Department isn’t sufficiently approving such steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests and for both has only an 11 percent rate of approval.
Rep. Walorski requested a prompt response from Ross on myriad questions, including whether the requester or the objector has the burden of proof in making such decisions.
Rep. Walorski also asked what steps the Commerce Department is taking to ensure that it is not giving an unfair advantage to one competitor that requested an exclusion over another with a pending request for a similar or the same product.
“There are ways to fix the process and, as has always been the case, I am raising these myriad issues in hopes of working with you to improve its fairness, transparency and efficiency for all participants,” wrote the lawmaker.