Commerce to Create 'General Approved Exclusions' in Revision to Section 232 Exclusion Process

The Commerce Department will make some changes to processes used on requests for exclusion from the Section 232, it said in an interim final rule released Dec. 10. One change is meant to “create a more efficient method for approving exclusions where objections have not been received in the past for certain steel or aluminum articles,” it said. Through General Approved Exclusions (GAEs), Commerce will create exclusions “that may be used by any importing entity,” it said. The “change will result in an estimated immediate decrease of 5,000 exclusion requests annually, resulting in a significant improvement in efficiency, with the possibility of more in the future,” it said. “Unlike exclusion requests, GAEs do not include quantity limits.”

Commerce also said it will address a trend of exclusion requests that include “more volume than they may have needed for their own business purposes compared to past usage,” it said. Commerce will add a new certification requirement for volume requests and it “adds a note to remind all parties submitting 232 submissions of the prohibition against making false statements to the U.S. Government and the consequences that may occur for such false statements.”

Another revision clarifies “when an objector would be required to be able to provide the steel or aluminum in the quantity and quality to which they were objecting on the basis that they could provide that steel or aluminum 'immediately,'” it said. The rule also includes responses from Commerce on wide range of issues cited by past commenters.