Several G-7 countries are keen for President Joe Biden to scrap steel and aluminum tariffs imposed during Donald Trump’s tenure. But the U.S. and its allies must first tackle the real problem: China.
Still, Biden is making some inroads in winning over Europe’s help. Ahead of this week’s G-7 meeting of wealthy economies, the nations’ trade ministers vowed to tackle issues that have led to a glut of steel and said it was “paramount” that other nations take part in the effort.
There are outside forces also pressuring officials to quickly reach a deal to remove the tariffs. In the U.S., powerful industry groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the National Foreign Trade Council have lobbied Biden to scrap the steel and aluminum tariffs, which they assert have led to higher prices for goods that use steel and longer wait times for deliveries.
Underlying all those tensions remains what to do about China’s excess steel production, which has vexed administrations at least since President George W. Bush., and it now produces more than 50 percent of the world’s supply. Even when the U.S. and other countries impose tariffs on imports, Chinese steel is often shipped to other countries that process it and sell it on the world market as their own, thus circumventing the restrictions.
In March 2018, Trump decreed a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum of imports from almost all countries, relying on what had been a little-used provision in Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The section allows for tariffs if cheap foreign imports erode U.S. national security, which Trump asserted steel and aluminum imports had done.
But critics inside and outside of the White House argued that it was a blunt instrument that would do more harm to the country’s allies than its adversaries. The top sources of foreign steel at the time were Canada, South Korea, Mexico, Japan and Germany, with China producing a much smaller share of U.S. imports.
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