BIS Hasn't Granted or Denied a Section 232 Exclusion in Months

The Commerce Department hasn't granted a steel or aluminum tariff exclusion since Dec. 17, 2021, and its last denial was posted Oct. 29, 2021. A lobbyist in the trade world said he has unsuccessfully tried to get to the bottom of why the Bureau of Industry and Security doesn't seem to be processing the applications at the moment. He said the Commerce Department told one office on Capitol Hill "there is no problem" and "that it's all functioning normally."

He said his guess is that because the Commerce Department is undertaking a rulemaking around the exclusion process (see 2112280036), everything's on pause. "They've done that one other time in the past," he said, when there was a Federal Register notice out. "They've kind of just put pencils down." He said it makes sense, as you wouldn't want to grant or deny an exclusion if the criteria is about to change, but he said he wishes they would communicate about the pause. The Commerce Department didn't respond to questions from International Trade Today.

Even though the Section 232 tariffs have been in place for four years, there can still be thousands of active exclusion requests because each one runs out after a year, the lobbyist said.