Sen. Toomey Discusses Prospects for Bill on Section 232 Tariff Authority

A bill that could undo the steel and aluminum tariffs -- and would prevent any other Section 232 tariffs from taking effect without congressional approval -- needs more support to convince Senate leadership to allow a vote on it, its author acknowledged. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said repeatedly last year that efforts like this would be vetoed, and therefore are a waste of time. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said that having 11 co-sponsors on the day of introduction is strong, but he added: "We obviously need to have much broader support for this in order to persuade Senator McConnell to devote floor time to it."

Toomey sat down with reporters Jan. 31 to talk about why Congress should reclaim authority on tariffs, and about the prospects for the bill's passage (see 1901300022). The bill has six Republican co-sponsors and five Democratic co-sponsors. "We're off to the races," he said. "Hoping to grow support. ... I think the time is already ripe, I don't think we have to wait for another round of [Section] 232 tariffs."

Toomey said there are more metal-consuming firms than steel makers. "We've been approached by over 50 Pennsylvania companies that represent tens of thousands of workers," he said. He also noted that Allegeny Technologies, a steel slab converter, had to pay $16 million in tariffs on imported steel and is operating a Pittsburgh-area plant at 40 percent capacity. The article he cited noted that the firm swung from a $91.9 million loss in 2017 to $222.4 million in profits in 2018, the year when the tariffs began. Toomey, who has a personalized hard hat from U.S. Steel in his office, said he's never been reticent to tell his home state's steel industry that he doesn't favor government favors on the steel industry's behalf.

President Donald Trump, when talking to reporters at the White House later the same day, claimed that the Rust Belt is now thriving since he became president, and seemed to link that to steel and aluminum tariffs. "The steel industry was dead when I came into office. It was dead. It was a dead industry," he said. "They were dumping steel all over the place ... and aluminum, too. When you look what's happened to the steel industry, it's incredible. It's one of the great successes."

Toomey's legislation would still leave room for the steel and aluminum tariffs to stay in place if a majority of Congress did not vote to roll them back. Because the metals are used in both military equipment and critical infrastructure, imports of the metals could qualify as national security threats. Under the new bill, it's hard to see how cars would qualify, because the bill says explicitly that only military equipment, critical infrastructure and energy qualify as areas appropriate for Section 232 tariffs. Current law includes "economic security" as one of the areas that can be defended with tariffs.

Toomey's new bill would also put the responsibility for determining a national security threat with the Department of Defense, not the Commerce Department. That was an element of a 232 bill last year from Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, which did not touch steel and aluminum but did give Congress the ability to disapprove of future Section 232 tariffs. Portman did not co-sponsor Toomey's bill. International Trade Today asked Toomey if limiting his bill to future Section 232 actions would gain more support.

"It's a fair question. We'll see what kind of reaction I get from my colleagues," he said. But he said his bill is stronger than Portman's approach because the president could veto a simple majority disapproval resolution, and then Congress would have to have supermajorities to stop tariffs. Since his bill requires congressional approval before the administration can act, it has a lower vote hurdle.

If Congress were to allow 232 tariffs, Toomey would have the International Trade Commission set up the product exclusion process, and any exclusion would be granted for all importers of that product. Toomey said the current steel exclusion process is still broken, and is not treating importers of the same items equally. "In some cases, some have gotten the exclusion and others have been turned down! That makes no sense at all."