Sen. Warren Calls for Investigation of Section 232 Exclusion Process

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called on the Commerce Department Inspector General to investigate the process for receiving company-specific requests for exclusions from Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum. “Commerce officials claimed that the exemption process would be 'fair and transparent,'" her office said in an Aug. 29 press release. “But an investigation by Senator Warren and additional public reporting have revealed the process is replete with mistakes and appears arbitrary, opaque and subject to political favoritism,” she said, citing an exclusion granted to a sanctioned Russian aluminum company. Among other things, Warren asked in her letter that the IG examine the "processes and procedures in place for Commerce officials to make" decisions on tariff exemptions.

Warren had sent a letter Aug. 7 to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross seeking answers to her questions about the exclusion. According to the letter, Commerce granted exclusions from aluminum tariffs to Rusal America, a subsidiary of a sanctioned Russian company controlled by oligarchs close to the Kremlin. The exemption had been issued over the objections of a domestic producer, days after a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, she said. Commerce reversed the exemption days after Warren sent the letter, without explanation.

Warren similarly raised concerns over additional “political interference in the exemption process.” U.S. Steel and Nucor, two domestic producers with “deep ties to the administration,” have “successfully objected to hundreds of exemption requests,” her office said. “And earlier this month, reports revealed that Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney was ‘trying to use his influence’ to urge the Trump administration for an exemption for a company whose president contributed $5,400 to Mulvaney's 2016 congressional campaign,” it said.