LAW 360: Battle Over Trump's Tariff Power Moves To High Court
April 15, 2019
The legal push to strike down the Cold War-era law used by President Donald Trump to set tariffs on national security grounds unexpectedly shifted to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday as a group of steel importers petitioned the justices to rule the law unconstitutional.
A U.S. Court of International Trade panel last month expressed reservations about the wide authority granted to the president under the law — Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 — but said it was nevertheless bound by a 1976 high court ruling that upheld the statute...FULL STORY
NWI Times: Steel tariffs turn a year old, survive a legal challenge
March 29, 2019
The steel tariffs of 25 percent on all foreign-made steel marked their one-year anniversary last week and survived a lawsuit filed by steel importers.
The U.S. Court of International Trade rejected a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the Section 232 tariffs, which have been credited with reducing imports, raising steel prices and making the domestic steel industry more financially successful. The court ruled it lacked the authority to second-guess the Trump administration on the duties, which raise the cost of buying steel manufactured abroad...FULL STORY
LAW 360: Industries Clash Over Future Of Trump's Metal Tariffs
March 26, 2019
The Trump administration’s sweeping steel and aluminum tariffs continued to spark feverish debate among the business community this week, with U.S. producers urging the White House on Tuesday to hold firm and import-reliant companies calling for the duties to be removed.
President Donald Trump installed a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum one year ago after deeming those imports a threat to national security. Save for a handful of countries that have arranged managed trade deals with the U.S., the duties remain in place for nearly every U.S. trading partner...FULL STORY
SNIPS MAGAZINE: OPINION: Steel tariffs are hurting U.S. manufacturers
February 15, 2019
As president of a manufacturing company in Milwaukee, we began last year full of optimism. Our business, Lakeside Manufacturing, which has been making products and providing jobs in Milwaukee since 1946, was expanding thanks to the hard work of our employees, a growing footprint in the foodservice market and investments in innovative start-ups. We were confident that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), and the Trump administration’s efforts to reform burdensome regulations, would free up additional resources to invest in our workers and business...FULL STORY
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE: Toomey bill would give Congress approval on tariffs invoked over national security
January 31, 2019
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is stepping up his effort to restrict the president’s trade authority.
His Bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act, introduced Thursday, would require congressional approval before the president can invoke national security concerns to justify tariffs and quotas.
The legislation, which also is being introduced in the House, was sparked by new tariffs on steel and aluminum...FULL STORY
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Trade war’s wounded: Companies improvise to dodge cost hikes
January 13, 2019
In Rochester, New York, a maker of furnaces for semiconductor and solar companies is moving its research and development to China to dodge President Donald Trump’s import taxes — a move that threatens a handful of its 26 U.S. jobs.
In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the CEO of a company that makes precision parts for the biomedical and chip making fields jokes bitterly that he’s running “a nonprofit” and might have to cut jobs.
And west of Detroit, a metal stamping company that supplies the auto industry is losing business to foreign rivals because Trump’s steel tariffs have raised metals prices in the United States...FULL STORY
THE FABRICATOR: USMCA trade deal fails to address tariffs
December 11, 2018
The first thing to note about the proposed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is that it does not include elimination of the 25 percent tariff on imported steel and the 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum that the White House ordered into place in early 2018... FULL STORY
FINANCIAL TIMES: Washington tariff relief backlog hobbles US auto suppliers
December 10, 2018
Suppliers to the largest US car manufacturers are waiting for decisions on more than 1,000 applications for relief from the Trump administration’s new tariffs, and have been denied requests for more than 300, in a sign of the pressure the industry faces from restrictions on imports. The costs added by the tariffs come as the US auto industry is grappling with flagging demand, and has been laying off thousands of workers... FULL STORY
WALL STREET JOURNAL: U.S. Companies Feel the Pinch as Tariff Costs Start to Mount
December 7, 2018
American companies that import products are paying record amounts in customs duties as more tariffs imposed by the Trump administration take effect. Tariff collections topped $5 billion in October, according to data from the Treasury Department and from Census Bureau data analyzed and released by Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, a lobbying coalition of manufacturing, farming and technology groups... FULL STORY
THE FABRICATOR: CAMMU releases statement on USMCA signing and Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs
December 3, 2018
The Coalition of American Metal Manufacturers and Users (CAMMU) has released a response to the signing of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, expressing its disappointment that the signed agreement did not include the termination of Section 232 steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico... FULL STORY
THE HILL: Why cripple the US economy with tariffs when it's hitting full stride?
October 5, 2018
The American economy is roaring. As Americans have returned to the workforce, unemployment has fallen to lows rarely seen in the last 50 years. Job growth is strong – 201,000 jobs were created in August – and some employers are even having trouble finding workers. Earnings are up, and last year median household income hit a new high of roughly $61,400. And of course, last quarter’s 4.2 percent GDP growth undercuts any notion that the “new normal” constrains us to tepid 2 percent growth.
In the face of these positive indicators, the administration seems determined to snatch failure from the jaws of success by escalating its trade war with our top trading partners... FULL STORY
PLATTS: Trade court grants US steel group's request for panel to hear Section 232 case
September 20, 2018
The US Court of International Trade has granted a request filed by the American Institute for International Steel to have a three-judge panel decide whether the US Section 232 statute used to impose tariffs on steel imports is unconstitutional, the AIIS said Thursday.
CIT cases are typically heard by a single judge, however in challenges to the constitutionality of US law and other instances with "broad and significant implications, the chief judge may assign the case to a three-judge panel," according to the court... FULL STORY
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Trump tariffs put Hawley in a bind
September 15, 2018
The fate of a Missouri nail manufacturer suffering under President Donald Trump’s steel tariffs has put Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley in a bind between his support for the president’s trade strategy and a local plant that says it could be forced to close.
Mid Continent Nail Corporation says it could shutter its Poplar Bluff plant, which employs about 335 workers, as early as this month without an exemption to tariffs, the site’s operations general manager, Chris Pratt, told reporters in early September. The company previously had said that it might not survive through Labor Day but stayed open... FULL STORY
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Nailed by Steel Tariffs
September 9, 2018
When President Trump promised to make America great again, the employees at Mid Continent Nail in Missouri probably didn’t expect he would put them out of work. But the steel tariffs imposed in June have the company hanging by a thread.
Mid Continent is the largest nail manufacturer in the U.S. and has been in Missouri for more than 25 years. It had 500 employees at its Popular Bluff plant and was the second largest employer in the small town before the Trump tariffs hit... FULL STORY
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Pass it On: U.S. executive learned from Japanese management
September 4, 2018
Troy Roberts is the chief executive of Qualtek Manufacturing Inc., a small metal stamping company located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which has 74 employees and US$7 million in annual sales of parts for medical devices and other metal products.
Before joining Qualtek, a 50-year-old privately held American company in 2016, Roberts served as president and chief operating officer of AIDA-American Corp., the North American subsidiary of Japanese-based AIDA, the second-largest global manufacturer of high-precision mechanical stamping presses and automation equipment for the auto, appliance and electronics industries... FULL STORY
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Rising Metals Prices Show Little Sign of Substantially Boosting U.S. Production
August 24, 2018
Rising prices for steel and aluminum are driving up the value of shipments and orders of metals being produced at U.S. plants, but show little sign of substantially boosting the quantity of metals being churned out of U.S. factories or the number of workers producing them.
The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, a move meant to encourage more production in the U.S. at the expense of foreign competitors by driving up the price of imported goods... FULL STORY
CNBC: Michigan auto parts maker caught in trade war crosshairs
August 21, 2018
Representatives from a struggling southeast Missouri nail factory were in Washington D.C. Tuesday to plea for relief from the trade war.
Missourinet media partner KFVS-TV reports leading officers from Poplar Bluff’s Mid-Continent Steel and Wire made their case directly to the head of the Commerce Department... FULL STORY
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Once again, Texans are right in the crosshairs of Trump’s trade war with China
August 21, 2018
Texas is once again stuck in the crossfire of President Donald Trump’s intensifying trade war with China. The state’s energy, chemical and tech sectors are among those bracing for new pain after the U.S. on Tuesday finalized tariffs on $16 billion in Chinese goods and Beijing on Wednesday finished touches on retaliatory levies to cover $16 billion in American products... FULL STORY
INSIDE U.S. TRADE: Steel group cites Turkey decision in Section 232 challenge at CIT
August 21, 2018
The American Institute for International Steel is citing President Trump's decision to double Section 232 tariffs on Turkish imports as another reason the statute should be modified. The group is pushing the Court of International Trade to issue a declaration that the law relied on by Trump to impose a 25 percent tariff on imported steel is unconstitutional, as well as a court order preventing further enforcement of the steel tariff increase. A ruling in its favor would also require that U.S. Customs and Border Protection refund tariffs already paid... FULL STORY
HARTFORD BUSINESS: CT manufacturers scramble to blunt metals tariffs
August 20, 2018
In the nearly six months since President Donald Trump announced tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, Connecticut manufacturers have scrambled to blunt the impact of rising materials costs, jammed-up suppliers and other effects from the Republican administration's trade policies.
The impact of tariffs, and strategies deployed to mitigate them, vary from company to company, but three central Connecticut manufacturers interviewed by the Hartford Business Journal reported a combination of efforts that include changing ordering strategies or stockpiling key metals, asking the federal government for tariff exemptions, and diversifying or reshuffling their supplier mix... FULL STORY
THE TENNESSEAN: Tennessee manufacturers urge Trump to rescind steel tariffs
August 20, 2018
A group of Dickson County manufacturers sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to rescind the tariffs on imported steel, which they say have impaired their ability to compete with foreign companies.
Executives from six area companies employing more than 1,000 Tennesseans described the significant price increases on steel, both domestic and imported, that they said are impairing their ability to compete against foreign companies. According to the Aug. 13 letter, steel prices are the highest they have been since 2008 and they have increased by 43 percent since this time last year... FULL STORY
THE TENNESSEAN: Tennessee manufacturers urge Trump to rescind steel tariffs
August 20, 2018
A group of Dickson County manufacturers sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to rescind the tariffs on imported steel, which they say have impaired their ability to compete with foreign companies... FULL STORY
HARTFORD BUSINESS: CT manufacturers scramble to blunt metals tariffs
August 20, 2018
In the nearly six months since President Donald Trump announced tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, Connecticut manufacturers have scrambled to blunt the impact of rising materials costs, jammed-up suppliers and other effects from the Republican administration's trade policies. The impact of tariffs, and strategies deployed to mitigate them, vary from company to company, but three central Connecticut manufacturers interviewed by the Hartford Business Journal reported a combination of efforts that include changing ordering strategies or stockpiling key metals, asking the federal government for tariff exemptions, and diversifying or reshuffling their supplier mix... FULL STORY
UPI: Expect production cuts without tariff relief, U.S. energy group says
August 19, 2018
Steel tariffs are creating headwinds for the U.S. energy sector, impeding with the government's own objectives and stifling production, industry leaders said. "The Trump Administration has supported the development of robust domestic energy production. Energy infrastructure projects are complex, expensive, and depend on global supply chains," Josh Zive, a senior principal at Bracewell LLP, told UPI. "The Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs are creating uncertainty and increasing costs for the development and construction of these energy infrastructure projects across the country."... FULL STORY
NORTHWEST INDIANA TIMES: Steel trade association trying to raise funds
August 17, 2018
A trade association representing the steel supply chain appealed to members to drum up funding for its lawsuit against the Section 232 steel tariffs of 25 percent on foreign-made steel. The American Institute for International Steel, along with oil country tubular goods-maker Sim-Tex and steel-trader Kurt Orban Partners, filed a lawsuit disputing the constitutionality of the law allowing the president to impose tariffs on the grounds that the erosion of the U.S. steel industry is a threat to national security... FULL STORY
TANK TRANSPORT TRADER: Opposition Growing To Steel, Aluminum Tariffs
August 16, 2018
With the slogan “tariffs are taxes,’’ a diverse array of steel and aluminum-using manufacturers from across the United States has launched a new coalition focused on terminating the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. Called the Coalition of American Metal Manufactures and Users, the new trade group hopes to avoid what happened in 2001 when steel was similarly locked out through Section 201 tariffs. Those tariffs lead to the loss of an estimated 200,000 jobs... FULL STORY
ROLLING STONE: A Brief Overview of What Trump’s Tariffs Have Wrought
August 13, 2018
President Trump has long felt the United States is getting ripped off when it comes to trade. He’s lamented it at campaign rallies, he’s tweeted about it repeatedly and this year he finally decided to do something about it. It’s a simple fix, Trump reasoned: Just tax the hell out of America’s biggest trade partners. “When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win,” Trump’s tweeted in March after imposing tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum. “Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!”... FULL STORY
USA TODAY: These companies might close, lay off US workers
August 8, 2018
The ongoing trade war President Donald Trump has waged against world powers, including some of our closest allies, doesn't show signs of slowing down. Left in the fray: Companies, American workers and consumers... FULL STORY
NEW YORK TIMES: Steel Giants With Ties to Trump Officials Block Tariff Relief for Hundreds of Firms
August 5, 2018
Two of America’s biggest steel manufacturers — both with deep ties to administration officials — have successfully objected to hundreds of requests by American companies that buy foreign steel to exempt themselves from President Trump’s stiff metal tariffs. They have argued that the imported products are readily available from American steel manufacturers... FULL STORY
TODAY'S MACHINING WORLD: Ep. 3- Part 2 of Miles Free Interview
July 20, 2018
Miles Free, Director of Research and Technology at the Precision Products Association, opines on electric cars, economic patriotism and how American machine shops have evolved to thrive in today’s economy... FULL STORY
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL: Trump tariffs: Wisconsin manufacturers hit by trade polices discuss plight with Ron Johnson
July 17, 2018
Ralph Hardt of Manitowoc-based Jagemann Stamping Co. came to the Federal Courthouse in Milwaukee Monday to tell Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson exactly how tariffs are hitting his bottom line. Hardt, the firm's president, said a Canadian customer was going to give Jagemann a $3 million project to produce automotive parts but because of an increase in steel prices in the U.S., the job went to a Korean business... FULL STORY
TODAY'S MACHINING WORLD: Ep. 2- Talking Steel Tariffs with Miles Free
July 11, 2018
In Episode #2 of Swarfcast, Today’s Machining World’s podcast, Noah interviewed Miles Free of the PMPA (Precision Machined Products Association). Free is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the steel trade. They discussed how the recently implemented tariffs on raw materials into the United States affect the U.S. precision machining industry... FULL STORY
CBS: How Trump's trade war is already costing consumers
July 11, 2018
This is how a trade war begins. The Trump administration imposed a 25 percent tax on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports July 6, mostly on parts imported to manufacture U.S. goods. China retaliated with taxes on an equal amount of U.S. products, including soybeans, electric cars and pork. Another $16 billion in U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods may take effect at the end of July. And Mr. Trump is threatening hundreds of billions more... FULL STORY
CLEVELAND 19: Cleveland steel company weighs in on trade war
July 9, 2018
The war on trade tariffs is effecting people nationally as well as locally. Bill Adler is the owner of Stripmatic Products and has been since 1992. “95 percent of the steel we buy is domestic, US made steel,” Adler explained. At Stripmatics they stamp the steel to make parts for your car, which means if the tariff isn't figured out soon, the cost of your new car could go up... FULL STORY
THE HILL: Kudlow warns WTO won't determine US policy as summit nears
July 9, 2018
The president’s top economic adviser on Wednesday implied that the U.S. may not abide by any rulings from the World Trade Organization (WTO), a tough signal ahead of a Group of Seven summit this weekend where Trump is expected to face a backlash from allied leaders over his protectionist trade agenda... FULL STORY
WASHINGTON POST: The U.S.-China trade war has begun. Here's how things got to this point.
July 6, 2018
With all the recent hostilities, it's easy to forget that China and the United States have been top trading partners for years. In 2015, China overtook Canada as the United States' largest trading partner, boasting nearly $500 billion in total imports and exports, about 15 percent of total U.S. trade. The United States, on the other hand, has been China's top trading partner since the 1990s, overtaking Hong Kong as the largest importer of Chinese merchandise goods in 1998... FULL STORY
FINANCIAL TIMES: US Industry starts to feel pain of trade disputes
July 5, 2018
Manufacturing has thrived in the US over the past couple of years but industry fears are rising that the escalating series of trade disputes provoked by President Donald Trump will bring its growth to a halt. Many US manufacturers say the increased costs of steel, aluminium and components caused by US tariffs, and the accompanying threat of being shut out of other countries’ markets by retaliatory measures, have created uncertainty that is tempting them to put a brake on hiring and investment decisions... FULL STORY
CENTRAL PENN BUSINESS JOURNAL: In York County, reality of tariffs sets in
July 5, 2018
In some cases, midstate businesses increase customer costs in response to retaliatory tariff. Business has been booming for Habot Steel Co. in West Manchester Township... FULL STORY
NEW YORK TIMES: Tariffs? Time for a Plan B: ‘Gobble Up Every Bit of Material That I Can’
July 5, 2018
With tariffs driving up the price of stainless steel, the precision-part manufacturer Accu-Swiss in Oakdale, Calif., came up with a plan to save money: turn off the lights but keep the machines on. “We are being hurt because of the cost increase,” said Sohel Sareshwala, the company’s owner and president. To squeeze more output from existing equipment, he is “running the machines in a lights-out operation.”... FULL STORY
CHINA DAILY: Steel business suffer from Trump's tariffs
July 4, 2018
When Bill Adler, owner of a metal stamping company in Ohio, prepared to bid on a contract to make commercial sausage stuffers for a company that wanted to replace its Chinese supplier last year, he thought he could by matching China's price... FULL STORY
NEW YORK TIMES: Trump's Taking Us From Temper Tantrum to Trade War
July 2, 2018
In one way, Donald Trump’s attack on our foreign trade partners resembles his attack on immigrants: in each case, the attack is framed as a response to evildoing that exists only in his imagination. No, there isn’t a wave of violent crime by immigrants, and MS-13 isn’t taking over American towns; no, the European Union doesn’t have “horrific” tariffs on U.S. products (the average tariff is only 3 percent)... FULL STORY
DALLAS NEWS: Texas company burdened by metal tariffs sues Trump administration
June 27, 2018
A Texas company is suing the Trump administration to overturn steep metal tariffs imposed earlier this year. Waller-based Sim-Tex, a pipeline products distributor, on Wednesday joined a California company and the American Institute for International Steel to challenge the constitutionality of the law that President Donald Trump used to pursue import levies on steel and aluminum... FULL STORY
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Harley, stung by tariffs, shifts some production overseas
June 26, 2018
Production of Harley-Davidson motorcycles sold in Europe will move from U.S. factories to facilities overseas, the Milwaukee-based company announced Monday, a consequence of the retaliatory tariffs the EU is imposing on American exports in an escalating trade war with the Trump administration... FULL STORY
WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Trump's 'America First' trade policy interfering with his 'energy dominance agenda'
June 25, 2018
"America First" vs. "energy dominance." Those two signature initiatives of President Trump are going to war with each other, as his protectionist policies and expected intervention in competitive markets are putting up barriers to the oil and natural gas industry... FULL STORY
INFORUM: Bin, machinery makers hit by steel tariff hikes
June 19, 2018
The steel tariff threats and realities have been roiling for four or five months and are starting to come to a head in farm country, where farmers already are watching purchases carefully... FULL STORY
WALL STREET JOURNAL: No Country for American Locker Makers
June 19, 2018
Opportunity lured entrepreneur John Altstadt out of retirement and into the business of making lockers for workplaces, gyms and schools. Yet a year after becoming president of Lyon Group Holding, his company is struggling to survive as Donald Trump’s steel tariff gives his Chinese competitors an unfair advantage. Meet the law of unintended tariff consequences with arbitrary harm to the innocent... FULL STORY
WASHINGTON POST: This Ohio factory thought it could bring U.S. jobs back from China. Then Trump got involved.
June 7, 2018
Bill Adler was invited last year to bid on a contract to make commercial sausage stuffers for a company that wanted to replace its Chinese supplier. The customer had just one nonnegotiable demand: Match China’s price.
Adler, owner of metal-parts maker Stripmatic Products, thought he could. But even as he readied his proposal, talk of President Trump’s steel tariffs sent the price of Stripmatic’s main raw material soaring... FULL STORY
ABC 5: Steel tariffs starting to take tool on manufacturers in Northeast Ohio
June 7, 2018
The cost of doing business with one commodity is creating a lot of concern in Northeast Ohio as the price of steel soars. One local manufacturer is painting a grim picture as the U.S. holds its position on imposing metal tariffs... FULL STORY
THE ECONOMIST: President Trump's tariffs have united his opponents at home and abroad
June 7, 2018
“HOW am I going to compete?” asks Sohel Sareshwala. He runs Accu-Swiss, a Californian company making customised components for the manufacture of semiconductors and cars. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium, both of which he uses as inputs, are eating into his profit margins and delaying his orders. Meanwhile, Mr Sareshwala’s competitors abroad, free of such concerns, can undercut him... FULL STORY
BLOOMBERG: Ross Backs Populist Push to Make America Great With Tariffs
May 30, 2018
President Donald Trump’s unilateral tariff measures are necessary to fix a broken global trade system and the U.S., like other nations, should focus on its own interests, according to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross... FULL STORY
